By Alison@Creekside
There’s just so much wrong with this news story about the Canada Border Services Agency arresting and jailing a 66-year old woman for 12 days, for trafficking, possessing, and importing heroin, because their swab-test of a jar of motor oil in her vehicle incorrectly identified it as heroin. Why wasn’t Janet Goodin allowed a phone call? Why did it take 12 days to get a lab report?
But the explanation from CBSA spokesy Lisa White is the weirdest:
“CBSA officers are trained to look for clues or multiple indicators before referring someone for secondary inspection. CBSA officers consider many factors, including previous infractions, countries visited, nervousness, etc., in assessing who or what might be a risk. When CBSA officers suspect a possible presence of narcotics, a field test will be conducted. These may include narcotic identification tests, spray tests and detector dogs.”
OK, but as subsequent testing revealed no trace of heroin at all, what “clues” tipped you guys off?
That she had no prior record? That she was a retired Girl Scouts administrator on her way to a regular bingo game?
Reading the many comments below the Winnipeg Free Press article desperately attempting to absolve the CBSA — that it was Goodin’s own fault for having an unmarked jar of motor oil in her vehicle, that heroin does look like motor oil after all, that maybe she was a mule doing a test run, that the CBSA are just doing their job, that perhaps her son-in-law had heroin on his hands when he gave her the jar of motor oil that subsequently tested for no heroin — you realize the extent to which the terr’rists really did win. We are one paranoid country now.
And also: that this is how we wound up with Steve.
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