Pubdate: Mon, 22 Mar 2010
Source: Hill Times, The (Ottawa, CN ON)
Copyright: 2010 Hill Times Publishing Inc.
Contact:  http://www.thehilltimes.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/192
Author: Harris MacLeod
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?199 (Mandatory Minimum Sentencing)

PRIME MINISTER'S TOUGH-ON-CRIME AGENDA ENERGIZES BASE, APPEALS TO SWING VOTERS

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government is expected to reintroduce 
a slate of justice bills, but experts predict the measures will only 
increase incarceration rates at great expense to taxpayers.

As crime rates in Canada fall, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's 
government is expected to reintroduce a slate of justice bills to 
beef up sentences and enforcement, but justice experts predict the 
measures will only increase incarceration rates at great expense to 
taxpayers, and political observers say the Tories' stance will 
energize their base and appeal to law-abiding swing voters.

In the last session of Parliament the government introduced 17 
law-and-order bills, of which three were passed into law and the rest 
died on the Order Paper when Parliament was prorogued on Dec. 30.

Last week Justice Minister Rob Nicholson (Niagara Falls, Ont.) 
announced the government would table a bill proposing changes to the 
Youth Sentencing Act, which among other things would give judges 
powers to consider non-criminal behaviour when sentencing youths, 
even though according to Statistics Canada youth crime is down 26 per 
cent from 2002-2003. The government also announced plans to make it 
harder to repatriate Canadian criminals in foreign jails, and 
reintroduced a bill to bolster the national sex-offender registry.

A spokesperson for the minister, Pamela Stephens, said Mr. Nicholson 
would reintroduce Bill C-15, which would bring in mandatory minimum 
sentence for narcotics offences, in the Senate, and that discussions 
among the various House leaders about the possibility of 
reintroducing other justice bills are ongoing.

Canada's overall crime rate declined by 15 per cent between 1998 and 
2007, and the Crime Severity Index, which tracks the relative 
severity of a crime in comparison with other crimes, declined by 21 
per cent. Experts appearing before both the House of Commons and 
Senate Justice committees testified that mandatory minimum sentences 
do not deter crime, and in the U.S. have led to skyrocketing 
incarceration rates. A 2001 report by the federal Justice Department 
reached the same conclusion.

Yet the government is forging ahead with its "tough-on-crime" agenda.

Doug Lewis, who served as justice minister, attorney general, and 
solicitor general under former Progressive Conservative prime 
minister Brian Mulroney, said the Harper government's approach 
appeals to people's common sense.

"I think [the justice laws] have a broad measure of appeal to the 
voting public because the vast majority of the voting public keeps 
the law, and obeys the law, and does not get into trouble with the 
law and therefore the general attitude is, 'Well listen, if I'm 
obeying the law, and earning a living, and raising my kids as well as 
I can, why should these people who decide it's much easier to break 
the law and earn something that way get off scot-free?' It's a 
natural reaction," he said.

Indeed, a recent study by Angus Reid Strategies revealed Canadians 
are taking a more punitive view of justice issues. The firm used a 
statistical technique called "cluster analysis" to identify four 
groups of people with similar attitudes to crime, ranging from the 
"Punitive" cluster group, who supports the death penalty even for 
things like kidnapping, to "Reformers" cluster group at the opposite 
end of the spectrum, who believes measures like mandatory minimum 
sentences could do more harm than good and feels more resources 
should be put into prevention and rehabilitation.

In each group there was a significant portion of people who believed 
that crime in Canada has increased; a third of "Reformers" thought 
crime rates had gone up, and 68 per cent of so-called "punishers" 
believed crime rates were on the rise, with the other two groups 
falling somewhere in between. Only 11 per cent of the Punitive group 
thought crime had decreased, compared to a third of Reformers.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.), in a 2008 
speech, blasted research-based justice policies for trying to 
"pacify" Canadians, a view he reiterated in his first-ever YouTube 
interview last week.

"I think the view of the population of Canada on this issue is 
actually pretty clear, that when serious crimes are committed, people 
expect the penalties to match these crimes," Mr. Harper said in 
response to an online question. "There are these arguments that told 
people somehow if you don't punish criminals, that crime will go 
away. I never quite understood the philosophy, but I think people 
understand that that approach has not been effective."

Mario Canseco, vice-president of public affairs at Angus Reid, said 
the Harper government's justice agenda is a way to "re-energize" the 
Conservative base, nearly 90 per cent of who support the 
law-and-order agenda. He added it could also attract swing voters if 
crime stories are big in the news when the legislation is being tabled.

Craig Jones, executive director of the John Howard Society of Canada, 
said the government's policies are meant to appeal to the "Tim 
Hortons crowd" and rely on people's ignorance about crime in Canada 
and the justice system. But he predicted the as-yet-unknown costs 
that will be incurred through increased enforcement and incarceration 
would "shock and awe" Canadians when the numbers are eventually released.

The recently published 2010-2011 Treasury Board Estimates showed that 
Correctional Services Canada saw its total budget increase by 
$255.7-million, of which $87.2-million is for the implementation of 
the "Truth in Sentencing Act," a measure limiting the amount of 
credit prisoners can get for time served in prison before and during 
their trial, which became law in February.

Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page is compiling a report, 
requested by Liberal public safety critic Mark Holland 
(Ajax-Pickering, Ont.), on the projected costs of the government's 
changes to the justice system. In February Mr. Page told The Hill 
Times the report would likely be ready this month, but his office 
said last week it would be further delayed and couldn't say when it 
would be released.

Mr. Jones said he's been in contact with the PBO about the report, 
and the reason for the delay is because Mr. Page is having difficulty 
getting the government to release the projected expenses of its 
justice bills, such as construction costs for prisons, and the 
expected growth of the incarcerated population. In 2007-08, the 
annual average cost of keeping one person incarcerated was $101,666 per year.

"All of those numbers are still Cabinet confidence, and that's the 
government's prerogative, but if we continue down this track it seems 
to me the government is asking Canadians to write a blank cheque for 
a crime agenda in a context in which crime is already in decline," he said.

But Mr. Lewis, the former Tory justice minister, said voters are more 
interested in seeing tough justice for criminals than studying 
expenditures for corrections services.

"Any government could spend all their time providing information," he 
said. "But the vast majority of the public only has an interest when 
they decide to have an interest, and this demand for great chunks of 
information doesn't make things go round in their daily lives so I'm 
skeptical as to how much they want to know."

Another former justice minister, Martin Cauchon, who served under 
former Liberal prime minister Jean Chretien and is planning to run in 
the next election, said the Conservative government's justice 
policies lack vision and only seek to increase penalties without 
addressing the roots of crime. When he was justice minister, from 
2002 to 2003, he put forward legislation to decriminalize the 
possession of small amounts of marijuana, and also put in motion the 
process leading to the legalization of same-sex marriage, which was 
realized in 2005.

The Harper government's Bill C-15, which the justice minister will 
reintroduce in the Senate, would change the law so that someone 
caught with as few as five marijuana plants would spend a minimum of 
six months in jail. Mr. Cauchon said the reason he sought to change 
the law around cannabis was to bring it into line with "the reality," 
and he still believes this is the right approach, noting his 
legislation contained strong measures to crack down on drug traffickers.

In the last session of Parliament the Liberals teamed up with the 
Tories to pass Bill C-15, with some Grit MPs telling the media they 
did so out of fear of being labeled soft on crime. It's unclear 
whether they will continue to support the government's justice 
legislation when it's reintroduced, although in recent statements to 
the media the Liberals have blasted the Tories' approach as 
simplistic and shortsighted.

Mr. Cauchon said it's often more difficult to explain good justice 
policy to voters, but said it's possible, it just takes some hard 
work. He pointed out that when he first started arguing in favour of 
same-sex marriage around the Cabinet table more than 60 per cent of 
Canadians were opposed.

"When you have a vision and you believe in this as I did you roll up 
your sleeves, you travel, you communicate to people," he said. "You 
work with your caucus and at the end of the day you succeed. And look 
at same sex marriage that was enacted about five years ago and today 
we don't even talk about it. Canadians society is on side; they have 
accepted it and they know today it's exactly where we had to go as a society."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom