If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
The Blog
Time for prisoners to start paying their own way, says the Minister for Public Safety, Vic Toews. This will invariably lead to the reduction of community corrections programs that have been shown to best promote successful rehabilitation and reintegration. What if instead of trying to break the cycle of poverty-to-prison-to-poverty, we actively embraced it?
Currently, Canadian law prohibits states from being sued except in relation to commercial matters. As such, state sponsors of terror are shielded from civil redress, and Canadian tax dollars are used to finance the defending of that state's immunity from liability. The Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act will fix this.
According to former Ontario corrections minister Robert Sampson, mandatory minimum sentencing is a great tool for getting people the education and training they need to successfully reintegrate and contribute to society.
Today, the House had its final opportunity to debate Bill C-10, the Conservative omnibus crime bill. It is quick to judge non-violent offenders as needing lengthy mandatory minimum prison sentences in the face of all evidence to the contrary.
By adopting the Lockerbie Amendments, the Senate filled a significant gap in the proposed law and should be commended. Previously, if a government planned for mass murder on a plane it would be immune if the atrocity was committed through its own officials rather than a listed terrorist entity.
There are quite a number of things to get through for this week, but if you'll indulge me for a moment, I'd first like to address an article that appeared in the Globe entitled "Is the Huffington Post the Future of Journalism?" The writer should have just yanked the paper out of the typewriter carriage (don't forget the carbon paper, too -- but save that, you can reuse it), crumpled it up, and started over. But maybe I should just jot down this complaint in a letter to the Globe's editor? With a stamp? Now back to business. Or as we like to call it around here, the 21st-century news business.
Much like I can veto my best friend from buying a skirt I know she'll never wear, the Senate can veto parliamentary legislation as it sees fit. In fact, in the past, this veto power has been used pretty haphazardly, so why didn't the Senate veto Bill C-10? Perhaps it is because there is no pressure from Conservative ministers to kill the bill.
Here in Quebec, we have an original approach to youth crime that works. In 2010, the severity of youth crime in Quebec was the lowest in Canada, proof that we are not "soft" on crime but rather that we are smart and "tough" on its root causes. But now the Harper government wants to ignore the evidence and change that approach.
The Conservative government's new crime bill, Bill C-10, is likely to be voted on in the Senate this week. The legislation is misguided, ill- advised, will cost billions, and goes against what other jurisdictions have learned. The goal of the government should be to help, not shackle, its citizens
The most vocal criticism of Bill C-10 has been that the proposed legislation will incarcerate minors with hardened criminals. Nothing could be further from the truth. First, let's make it clear that no adolescent under 18 years can be held in a detention centre for adults.
The tragic irony is that the boogeyman of Harper's Bill C-10 -- the first time offender who fell victim to circumstances that those who now condemn him could never begin to navigate, will in fact emerge the hardened criminals they are painted as. We will have created the crime we seek to erase.
The Tories are invoking closure on the omnibus Crime Bill. Canadians may be sleepwalking while the seat of their country's democracy is being slowly choked. We barely have a properly functioning Parliament due to the anti-democratic instincts of the Harper Conservatives.
With Parliament's resumption this week, the Senate will consider the Conservative omnibus crime bill, C-10. In particular, amendments by the Government are expected as early as today to correct a mistake the Conservatives made in the House, a mistake which could have been avoided had the Government paid attention.
Last week we saw a glimmer of hope for our democratic future with the mobilization of tens of thousands of Canadians who came together in a dramatic display of engagement and concern for their country in response to the Conservatives passing bill C-10, the omnibus crime bill now before the Senate.
For 21 years, we've been commemorating Dec. 6 as a day of mourning and remembrance for the 14 young women at École Polytechnique brutally slain by an angry male who hated feminists. Yet this morning felt profoundly different. Today, in spite of real progress, we feel we all must begin the fight again.
It is clear that as a result of the omnibus crime bill we will have more crime, less justice, skyrocketing costs, fewer rehabilitation opportunities for offenders, less protection and voice for the victims, and less protection for society. This is a sad day for Canadian criminal justice.
