Typically Canadian, Eh?

We aren't particularly imposing, nor do we take great strides to impose ourselves notably. We're a little reserved, quiet, and fairly relaxed about our social mores. Still, we have a code of conduct that we're wedded to, with good reason, since we're also eminently reasonable, most of the time.

Well, there are exceptions to everything. We get a little anxious, restless, when we're up against our southern neighbour. We seem to find fault in their values, their popular culture. Even while we're steadfastly importing elements of those values, that culture.

As Canadians, we are comfortable with ourselves, although we don't shout it from the rooftops. We like to think of ourselves as mediators, peace-loving and -enjoying, sensible and matter-of-fact people, able to absorb diversity, and obligingly inclusive of others.

And we're rather intolerably smug, let's face it. Particularly when it comes to comparing ourselves with the United States. Canada doesn't initiate conflict, the U.S. does. Canada has a greater social conscience that does the United States, and we demonstrate that by our more generous attitude toward the have-nots among us.

Our welfare supports, our unemployment supports, are more generous than what accrues to the down-and-out, and the unemployed in the United States. We aren't entranced by the culture of the gun, quite unlike our neighbours. We have a universal health care system that ensures all Canadians have access to health care and critical financial coverage.

In short, we're pretty great, aren't we? Well, we pay a higher rate of income taxes as well as consumer taxes. We can't write off the interest on our mortgage payments the way American citizens can. Damn. We contrive offhandedness in opposition to American assertiveness.

And we simmer with resentment when the U.S. pulls its weight and leaves us in its wake; as it so often does with the NAFTA deal we've signed on to.

And then there's the matter of Capital Punishment. Canadians, bless our souls, have agreed we have no wish for the State to take a life as punishment for capital crimes. We're squeamish about things like that; if it's a mortal sin to murder, and we have stringent laws against that, then it's unreasonable for us to agree that our courts mete out capital punishment.

It's different in the United States; there are thousands on death row, and those found guilty of the ultimate crime face the ultimate punishment.

So Canada, in its great and good wisdom came to the conclusion that it would only turn over to American policing authorities those who have fled their punishment - seeking refuge in Canada - if our authorities could be successful in convincing Americans that in respect of our tender feelings they abstain from inflicting capital punishment upon a criminal we've turned over to them.

And it's worked fairly well. And that suits our view of ourselves, even if it's somewhat self-delusional. Who are we, after all, to persuade another mature society that their manner of solving the problem of how to dispense justice is morally intolerable?

When a criminal's assaults against society is so atrocious as to be beyond the realm of tolerance, a society has a right to determine how they will manage legally sanctioned punishment. We choose life imprisonment which isn't quite life imprisonment, and the United States opts - state by state - for their particular versions of meting out justice.

So hey, give us all a break. When a former chief of police sees fit to murder his wife over the issue of unpaid child support, he knows what he's doing, since he has planned and executed a death, and he's well aware of the punishment that society will exact.

Mere hours after killing his ex-wife, former Millerstown, Pennsylvania police chief Richard Curran was apprehended at the Canada-U.S. border, by Canadian authorities. And summarily handed over to the American authorities. Without Canada seeking assurance he would not face the death penalty. Which has had human rights activists cry foul, yet again.

If someone has murdered remorselessly - his own lawyer claims his client, Richard Curran, to be a "depraved wife killer" after all - the individual should be prepared to meet the challenge of U.S. law enforcement. For human rights activists to give dire warning that Canada's "moral authority" has been flouted, is a bit much.

The Americans will do as they will, and we in turn will conduct ourselves as we will, each being sovereign nations.

Our moral superiority, our moral smugness in such instances does us little credit. If a firm protocol exists with a firm understanding that capital-offence criminals handed over from Canada to the United States will not face capital punishment that's one thing. If it's a piecemeal, state-by-state actionable process it's another.

If the U.S. feels that the punishment should fit the crime as they determine it, that's their business. This man shot his wife seven times at close range. An additional five bullets missed. This was one determined murderer. A jury found him guilty of first-degree murder; he could have faced death by lethal injection. He was, instead, sentenced to life in prison, no parole.

Canada's sole interest in such cases should be that our Canada Border Services Agency officers be alert to ensure that individuals whose presence in Canada represents a clear danger be removed. Once handed over to the Americans, those good people will make their own decisions as they will, as reflects their social justice system. Finis.