On December 7, 2021, Ms. Lydia Li and Mr. River Li, the two editors-in-chief of Voice of Today and Canada Activity Network, accepted the invitation of the Canadian Youth Care Association and produced a video at the Office of the Multicultural and Tolerance Department of York Police.
Some time ago, a shocking and worrying video circulated the internet. A Chinese girl was brutally beaten on a U.S subway by several Central and Southeast Asian girls. In response to this incident, the Canadian Youth Care Association submitted a written application to the York Police Department in Ontario, inviting Officer Manson Zhou of the Multicultural and Tolerance Department to record several passages for teenagers in Mandarin on how to deal with bullying and how to protect your own.
According to the record of Officer Mason Zhou about an educational video at the invitation of the Canadian Youth Care Association:
Bullying is common among young students. It is important for children to learn ways to protect themselves. We hope that children try their best to put things aside, but at the same time, we hope children have a sense of helping one another. That is to say when a person is bullied, others should immediately stand up to help him. If there are more children standing up for each other, then bullies will be outnumbered and forced to stop.
The most important thing is self-protection. If you are too weak to fight the bully, leaving the situation is the most critical thing you can do. The second most important thing is finding help. For example, call 911, or ask the surrounding adults for help to minimize the situation. Be sure not to engage in a physical fight. It is never good to hurt yourself, or others.
From the perspective of criminal law, if the other party hits you and you don’t fight back, then their behaviour is a personal attack that violates the criminal law. If you take action, there is a word in Canadian law, consensual fight, which is a mutually agreed fight. The point is to not physically damage someone. If you break someone else’s arm or make someone else’s nose bleed… These are all crimes against the criminal law. With a consensual fight, as long as no one is injured, the police will generally not deal with it. Whether you take advantage or he takes advantage is business between you two.
If you are Bruce Lee, of course, you can play as you want. There is no problem when encountering a fight. But most people do not have this ability. If you punch someone, knock out the other party’s teeth, or make their nose bleed, then you violate criminal law. The statement stipulates: “No one will agree to physical injury”. We must grasp this degree.
I would like to remind everyone that we live in a civilized society and we try to solve problems in a civilized way. If this cannot happen, please leave the situation to professionals to solve. You can call the police. The police are equipped with professional equipment and training. They know how to deal with problems under all circumstances. “Let professional people do professional things”. This is very important to remember.
In case of emergency, you can always call 911. For example, when someone hits someone, because it involves personal safety, it is completely okay to call 911. The police generally react very quickly to calls, especially in York District. The police may come in less than a minute to see the situation at that time. If you are lucky, there may even be a police car next to you at the given location. If someone threatens your personal safety, you should call 911 immediately without any hesitation.
If a person is beaten and serious injury is caused in Canada, the perpetrator will be punished. If you cause personal injury, you will definitely be caught. If the perpetrator is a minor, their parents will immediately be notified. We have a criminal law for minors, which will be dealt with according to the situation.
For example, the girl in the video had her eyes injured. The degree of the injury was severe. She had bruises on her eyes for many days, and the trauma was obvious. How do we punish the perpetrators? The answer is given by the court. The police belong to law enforcement in Canada. After arresting a person, the police cannot make a judgment. Instead, it provides all the evidence to the court, which will make the final judgment according to the situation of the parties. Generally speaking, the police may use their perspective of the situation and ask the court to punish the perpetrator according to the intention and the degree of injury, or manner, or death, but the final decision is up to the judge. The court may judge on many different factors such as past behaviour, the likelihood of a repeat offence, mental state, etc. before making a final judgment. The final punishment is up to the court, not the police. If the other party pleads guilty, there may be conditional punishments such as fines, conditional imprisonment, etc.
Sometimes you may want to help others, but if you hurt others in the process, you have to take responsibility. So you must be careful. Unless your life is in danger or in a critical situation, the police will try their best to cool down the situation and deal with it in a smart way. Everyone’s safety should be put first. Even for those children who behave badly, the police have to give them a personal safety guarantee. In Canadian law, no matter who you are, you have the right to enjoy this security and live a safe life. This is an important principle. Your personal safety is the first priority. It is never acceptable to hurt others, no matter the reason. In the end, you risk yourself being arrested. This is why being smart is so important. Sometimes you may feel the urge to uphold the justice system. But if you hurt someone, there may be no way to exempt you from the justice system, no matter the reason. If you are excessive, it is over for you.
It is important to understand the difference between self-defence and excessive defence. Defence is okay, but what does excessive defence mean in Canadian law? The previous examples of a broken nose, broken arms, broken legs, are all considered excessive. If you can’t see physical damage on the surface of a person, the police will not care as much if it is a consensual fight. Although consensual fights happen from time to time, we do not encourage them. If you harm others, you bear criminal responsibility which is 100% certain.
Another situation is children may often harass you with discrimination. For example, kids will often make racial remarks in front of you. Is this harassment or discrimination? The police think this should be judged separately. This type of bullying usually happens when the child is weak, if the child has different beliefs, or if the child behaves differently from other children. Generally speaking, there are good regulations in schools that will solve these problems. If the problem is too big for the school to manage, it will be handed over to the police to deal with. Usually, the school will provide some training for this kind of bullying, such as encouraging students to tell teachers and parents or teaching them to find trusted friends to stand with them. But at the same time, children should also be encouraged to understand more about the problems that bullying may cause. We should teach them to help each other, stand with bullied children to face bullies, or report directly to the school to deal with it. Generally speaking, schools deal with bullying well.
Edited by Foresthill Rose
