Interspersed among the many commercials on one of the Canadian television networks is a feature called "A Canadian Minute". It's a short re-enactment of some little-known Canadian historical event or achievement, and it's usually quite interesting.
This little vignette about Agnes Macphail - the first woman to be elected as a member of Parliament in Canada - airs from time to time in the regular rotation. One of her many achievements was prison reform. In the early decades of the last century, there is no doubt that living conditions in prisons were deplorable and the treatment of prisoners was brutal by today's standards.
Nevertheless, how would you answer the question at the end of the clip?
I'm willing to bet that some readers own a reasonably accurate copy of the Canadian prison strap. I saw a real one in a museum once, and it's very frightening. (Click here for more details on Corporal punishment in Canadian prisons.)
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4 comments:
Hermione, an interesting post, not so different from conditions in certain of our penal institutions in the UK.
Warm hugs,
Paul.
Paul - I'm sure that was standard practice in many parts of the world.
Hugs,
Hermione
Hermione, interesting post, link not working at the moment, will try and take a look later if I can.
Never seen a strap like this.
Have a good weekend.
Ronnie
xx
Ronnie - if you got to the page that tells you to install Adobe Flash, that might be the problem. There is also a link (on that same page) that you click if you do have flash installed, and that starts the movie.
Hope this helps.
Hermione
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