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Families Of Slain Mounties Seek Harder Drug Law
Pubdate: Tue, 27 Sep 2005
Source: National Post (Canada)
Copyright: 2005 Southam Inc.
Contact: http://www.nationalpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/286
Author: Tim Naumetz, CanWest News Service
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?199 (Mandatory Minimum Sentencing)
FAMILIES OF SLAIN MOUNTIES SEEK HARDER DRUG LAW
Two Years For Growers: Canadians Asked To Shine Porch Lights To Pressure Ottawa
OTTAWA - Justice Minister Irwin Cotler washed his hands yesterday of
the once-heralded bill to decriminalize marijuana, saying it is up to
the Commons justice committee to decide what to do with it.
But Mr. Cotler and Prime Minister Paul Martin ducked opposition
demands to bring in tougher sentences for cannabis grow-operations as
the families of four slain Mounties appealed to Parliament and all
Canadians for support in their campaign against drugs and organized crime.
The family members, still scarred by the shooting deaths of the
officers by a violent outcast near Mayerthorpe, Alta., called on the
government to scrap the marijuana bill and introduce mandatory
minimum jail sentences for those who grow cannabis on a commercial scale.
"We have to draw the line and we're drawing the line here," said Don
Schieman, whose son was among the officers killed by James Roszko, a
violent criminal who was known to the local RCMP detachment and was
found with 283 marijuana plants in his isolated yard.
Mr. Schieman, with the assistance of Alberta Conservative MPs Rona
Ambrose and Rob Merrifield, whose riding includes Mayerthorpe, held a
news conference to ask Canadians to put pressure on the government.
The families want households across the country to switch on their
front porch lights between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. on the evening of the
third of every month, beginning in October, until next March 3, the
anniversary of the killings.
"Every day we live with sadness because of their untimely deaths,"
Mr. Schieman said. "As we have put the puzzle together we also live
with a fear that this could very easily happen again if present
conditions do not change."
He called for a minimum sentence of two years in prison for anyone
convicted of running a grow-op, and decried the lenient sentences
that have been handed down for drug growers and dealers.
"I'm sure the Roszkos of this world are laughing at us," Mr. Schieman said.
With an election on the horizon, and following a show of 5,000 police
and peace officers over the weekend for a Parliament Hill memorial of
all officers slain over the past year, Mr. Cotler said the government
is not going to press MPs to push the legislation ahead.
"We brought it forth, it's now a matter of what the committee will do
with it," he told reporters. "They will make their own determination
as to when and in what order that bill will be addressed. The
committee is a master of its own procedures.
Mr. Cotler denied the government wants the bill -- first introduced
under former prime minister Jean Chretien -- to languish.
"We didn't introduce it because we wanted to shelve it; we introduced
it because we wanted it to pass," he said, adding the government has
six criminal justice bills it wants passed in this Parliament.
Mr. Cotler sidestepped questions about minimum jail sentences for grow-ops.
"I know that grow-ops is a scourge across the country, it is a matter
that has to be addressed, and it has to be addressed not only through
the criminal law, though the criminal law is clearly one vehicle for
that purpose, and an important one," he said, noting the marijuana
bill, C-17, also contains tougher penalties for grow-ops.
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