During 1992 and 1993, Sam Sambavisam was the centre of a bitter controversy which divided the left in Saskatoon. This would be just another squalid domestic tale, fairly common in this abuse-tolerant province. He has gone through the political steps, holding executive positions in organizations like Equal Justice for All and inside the union. Now Sam wants to become a Member of the Legislative Assembly. Does anybody want this cunning man representing them? No. Face it Sam. It's over.

• Sandra Mitchell has come out in support of Sambasivam (May 21 StarPhoenix). The suggestion is that those of us who oppose Sam's candidacy are racist. Give us a break. It is racist to expect a lower standard from Sri Lankans or anyone else. Sandra and Bob have been sucked in by this charming liar and justify it now with phony liberalism. They claim to have known Sam for many years. That would mean that they also know Arloa. Are they truly buying Sam's story that Arloa is crazy and vindictive? Do they disagree with Dr. Margaret Mahood's June 24, 1991 assessment that : "As in April, 1988, I find that Arloa is a very intelligent, capable, conscientious parent. She has shown remarkable strength of character, capacity for clear insightful judgment and loving generosity when coping with the tragedy of the breakdown of her marriage and its devastating effects on the family. . . It should be noted that there is nothing in Arloa's history to suggest that she has ever suffered from a major psychiatric illness or indeed that she should ever have been treated with psycholtropic drugs. Her emotional reaction to depression and anxiety is reactive to the events in her life and entirely appropriate. . ."
• The beating he was convicted of was extremely vicious. His wife was convalescing for many weeks.
• When Arloa finally got it together to stand up for herself, Sam told her he would "kill [him]self and the children and leave [her] to mourn the bones" and that "you (Arloa) will be the next JoAnn Thatcher but I (Sam) won't be convicted like Colin."(This was part of the first letter I wrote to Roy Romanow and all Saskatoon MLA's Dec. 5, 1991. The letter was urging the party not continue to allow him to rise in its the ranks.)
• While his wife was in interval house recoveringbeating, he led friends to believe that she was in a psychiatric ward.
• He continued to spread a rumour that she was a nutcase, while he was continuing to beat her and psychologically terrorize her.
• For a time, the Saskatoon Police were so aware of his wife's need for protection that if she dialed 911, several squad cars would be there within a few minutes.
• He took advantage of her incapacitation to get custory of his children. When Arloa recovered sufficiently to try to gain some control over her life, the court awarded him generous visiting rights. Sam intensified the terror against her. He had already received a suspended sentence and seemed to take this as a licence to beat.
• Sam Sambavisam did not deny that he had beaten his wife since the conviction. He told Marjaleena Repo that "they could never prove anything" because he knew how to beat her in such a way that only soft tissues were involved. He also told Marjaleena that the beatings intensified after she first complained to police.
• While his wife was in hospital following a complication arising out of her treatment from the beatings, he told Mark Koenker that it should be all right to have sexual intercourse with your daughter if your wife was not available.
• Mark Koenker refused to confirm that he had said this and Sam was quickly moved to Regina to manage Serge Kjawa's election campaign. (1992)

• Every single Saskatoon MLA Roy Romanow received a full package informing them of all the details of Sam Sambasivam's misdeeds.
• Several people made the comment that he should not be blamed because wife-beating was "part of Sri Lankan culture"! In fact several people who have been to Sri Lanka or who are from there state that if he had done the same acts in Sri Lanka, he would have been banished from the community , after having received a sound beating from his wife's brothers
• Murray Dobbin and Larry Haiven spoke to Sam after several concerned women spoke to them. they then wrote an article about abuse "in the movement" for Briarpatch magazine.
• Sambasivam continued to rise through the ranks of the labour movement and the NDP.
• He told numerous individuals that his wife had lost her ambition (she was going to go to medical school) since he had met her in Sri Lanka. He felt himself to be superior to her.
• He thoroughly exploited her family.
• Sam thinks that everything that he has done is just fine. Wr beating his wife and then was given full custody of his kids while she was recovering in hospital!
• Sam Sambasivam understands politics very well and he is very ambitious.
• Sam Sambasivam's preemptive informing his constituency organization that he had "issues" in his past is nothing but a clever ploy to downplay the seriousness of his offence.
• His new allegation that the Social Services' fraud case in 1991 was all Arloa's doing is slander, plain and simple. The truth is that Arloa had some resources from her parents when she married Sam. By the time Sam got through with her, she had lost everything.
• Consider this: Sam's complete lack of remorse regarding his treatment of Arloa suggests that he used her from day one when he first met her in Sri Lanka. She was his ticket to Canada and once he was established, he cast her aside like so much garbage.

The wifebeating is not just a "mistake" for which he has "paid the price!" He is violent, a liar, and apparently has members of a heavy union behind him. He is absolutely unfit for any kind of public office.