Pubdate: Fri, 02 Dec 2011
Source: Penticton Western (CN BC)
Copyright: 2011 Penticton Western
Contact:  http://www.pentictonwesternnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1310
Page: 10
Author: Simone Blais

CRIME BILL DRAWS DISSENT

Legislation making its way through Parliament could tip the scales of 
justice toward harsher penalties, causing some groups concern about 
imbalance in sentencing.

Bill C-10, named the Safer Streets and Communities Act, is an omnibus 
piece of legislation rolling nine proposed reforms that had been 
debated during the previous sessions but had never become law.

They range in scope and content from increasing penalties for sexual 
predators of children, delaying pardons for serious crimes and 
combatting human trafficking.

Conservative MP Dan Albas (Okanagan Coquihalla) said the legislation 
builds sentences to match the severity of the crimes, such as when a 
drug trafficker sells next to a school, involves violence in the 
commission of an offence or is a repeat offender.

While aggravating factors were considered by judges, he said, the 
sentence meted out did not reflect the severity of the situation.

"All of those things were an option before, but when that threshold 
has been met, when someone has multiple of those factors, they are 
going to be getting a sentence commensurate to the crime,"  Albas 
said. "That's a justice system that's fair. Our first priority in 
government is to protect our citizens and that's what people want to see."

But there are elements causing consternation among members of the 
Canadian Bar Association, and Michael Welsh is lending his name to 
the opposition. A criminal trial lawyer who is vice-president of the 
Penticton and District Bar Association as well as the provincial 
representative on the B.C. branch of the Canadian association, he 
said lawyers understand the price the legislation will have on the 
country's most vulnerable population.

"It's going to criminalize a lot more of our youth. We're going to 
have a lot more people going into custody with these mandatory 
minimums, and that's only going to reinforce criminal behaviour," he said.

Welsh explained that stiffer adult penalties will cause less people 
to plead guilty, resulting in more trials, delays in the system and 
ultimately over-crowded prisons akin to California and Texas.

"We're penalizing the taxpayer by creating a system where we're 
spending hundreds of millions of dollars in expanding and building 
new prisons and warehousing people when we can ill-afford this,"  he 
said. "The people we'll be sending to jail are low-level grow 
operations with respect to marijuana, and that's over $100,000 a year 
to incarcerate somebody when statistics have indicated the crime rate 
is coming down.

"It's just a cynical public relations exercise on the part of the 
federal government as far as I'm concerned. They're trying to grab 
votes from people who think law and order and tough on crime is the 
way to go without understanding what's really happening in this country."

Albas said that the government is spending money on the federal 
corrections systems, in part because of aging infrastructure.

"Since we took office we've been making strategic investments to make 
sure the federal penitentiaries are getting safer. A lot of them are 
very old, very decrepit and not energy efficient, so we've been 
making those investments and continue to make those investments,"  he 
said, adding the government wants to continue with prevention 
programs. "In our riding of Okanagan Coquihalla, we've invested quite 
heavily in both crime prevention and youth initiatives."

The bill is currently being debated in Parliament, expected to wrap 
up discussion this week.
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart