Well yes ultimately, it is a truism. In time, a rotten apple in a
barrel of good apples will infect them with rottenness. The science
of mold spores invading the other apples and corrupting them makes
this a dictum which has application to other groupings of people as
well as fruit.We observe this truth enacted in the real life of daily news. For instance, Edmonton RCMP officer Tirth Sehmbi was charged in summer 2010 with murdering his wife Rajpinder Sehmbi. The evidence appears conclusive and the decision must still be rendered but according to our analogy, if he is guilty, he would be classified as the bad apple. If left long enough, that is, if something so serious as murder would be overlooked by his peers, the entire detachment would become corrupt. But my point today is to say, that this has not happened. It does not need to be assumed that it will happen. When the good apples of the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team, arrested Sehmbi and investigated him, it was with the intention of administering justice by removing the infection from their midst.
According to a CityNews story, Steve Ellis, an immigration judge and former city councillor was convicted of breach of trust in April 2010 and also convicted on an Immigration and Refugee Protection Act bribery charge because he offered citizenship to a Korean woman in exchange for sex. One bad apple in the Ontario judiciary system does not mean all judges are similarly bad, but if other judges ignored his action, they would eventually themselves forgive their own indiscretions and spoil the quality of law. My point is to say that this possibility has not occurred because the good judges still stand for what is good, ethical, right and lawful. So they purge the barrel.
Journalist Jennifer Moreau wrote the article 'Burnaby teacher convicted of sex offence handed lifetime teaching ban' for the Burnaby Now on October 27, 2010. She reported that the B.C. College of Teachers barred a female teacher from ever teaching again in B.C. and the report in sent throughout North America. She was convicted of sexual exploitation involving a St. Thomas More Collegiate student and sentenced to several months in jail. The bad apple again, but certainly what we read is the determination of good apples not to allow their student population or teaching staff to be contaminated.
What I am writing today is a caution against the unwholesome and dispiriting tendency I repeatedly read in the remarks of some injured and discouraged and overwhelmed commenters. That tendency is to easily assume that when something bad occurs in a foster home, all foster care is evil. Or, when a social worker submits a baseless and even falsified report about parents, all social workers are wicked. Or, when a judge makes a decision with which you disagree, all judges are corrupt. Is it fair to be suspicious of an entire profession because of a few bad apples?
The exaggerated and unreasonable response may serve as a vent but it neither calms the writer's own emotions nor steers the writer toward a desirable resolution. I am as you can see, well aware of the presence of some bad apples. I am by no means willing to concede that everyone in public positions of responsibility and authority is infected with rottenness and only you and I stand as whole and untouched apples. That is ludicrous and unproductive.
Yet, it is a concern to me that when one segment of one of our social systems repeatedly screws up or makes bad choices and poor decisions, and repeated examples of mismanagement surface, the decay is widespread enough that in order to get legislators and politicians to listen, the Press must be told all of your stories and they must fully disclose what is happening.
