Soft on truth
When you look beyond the paternalism, cynicism, genuine concern -- whatever motives drive the Harper government's punitive approach to crime -- only one question matters. Is it effective?
Will closing Vancouver's safe injection site, Insite, reduce drug addiction and related crime? Will imposing six-month minimum jail sentences on anyone caught with as few as five marijuana plants inhibit pot-smoking among teenagers? Will expanding prisons reduce violence in our streets?
Most legal experts, criminologists, addiction researchers and street-level health workers, along with many police chiefs and past reports from Parliamentary committees, say "no" -- as does the experience of other "tough-on-crime" jurisdictions.
It may be emotionally satisfying to punish evil, or express revulsion, with harsher sentences, but it is widely held -- by those who actually work in the field -- that prevention, better policing, services for the mentally ill and poverty alleviation are more useful if the goal is to make communities safer. The Liberals even used to believe that, before they became bashful.
But this government mistrusts experts, rejects evidence that doesn't confirm its own beliefs and dismisses critics as weak and deluded. It seems to believe most criminals, like willful teenagers, only need the threat of a few months in the slammer to see the light -- downplaying the fact that so many crimes are impulsive, and so many criminals mentally ill, addicted, or scarred by horrific abuse themselves. Not the types, in other words, to consider consequences before they act.
And curiously, despite its righteousness, the government isn't above resorting to mendacity itself. Both Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Justice Minister Rob Nicholson, for instance, have excoriated the "Liberal-dominated" Senate for, in Harper's words "eviscerating law and order measures urgently needed and strongly supported by Canadians."
In fact, as Senate Liberal leader James Cowan outlined convincingly this week, it was the unexpected prorogation of Parliament that "gutted" the Conservative anti-crime agenda.
Last session, the government introduced 19 crime bills and 11 were still before the Commons at prorogation. Of the eight that went to the Senate, four were passed. Two were still being debated when Harper pulled the plug, and another -- a Senate-initiated attempt to end the long-gun registry -- was withdrawn after a similar Commons bill passed.
Another bill, which would prevent convicts from subtracting two days from their sentences for every one day already served, was passed by the Senate in October and only died because cabinet didn't enact it quickly enough.
Nor was a bill cracking down on auto theft stalled in the Senate for six months, as Nicholson claimed -- at least, not entirely by Liberal senators. The delay was partly the result of a scheduled summer break.
Only the marijuana bill -- it would impose a mandatory minimum six months in jail for anyone caught with five or more plants -- was significantly amended. After hearing from a parade of witnesses that mandatory minimums are ineffective in dealing with drug crimes (a conclusion backed by a 2001 justice department report), Liberal Senators voted to leave it to judges to decide sentences for anyone caught with fewer than 200 plants.
An irritated Nicholson has vowed to reintroduce the bill in March, when Parliament resumes -- but here's another curiosity. The Hill Times reported recently that, in 1988, Nicholson, then a Progressive Conservative MP, was vice-chair of a Commons committee that recommended against mandatory minimums, except for repeat violent sex offenders. Asked about this apparent change of heart, the minister's spokes-person noted the drug world and values have changed. But the facts haven't. As New Democrat Libby Davies noted: "What they are doing is not based on evidence, whatsoever. It's a political stance."
The same can be said of Harper's implacable resistance to Insite -- a modest clinic in Vancouver's downtown east side, where addicts can get clean needles and access to medical care. The clinic doesn't provide drugs, but, through a legal exemption, allows addicts to administer their own narcotics.
Intended to get addicts out of back alleys and reduce the transmission of disease through dirty needles, the pioneering clinic has considerable community support: leading B.C. politicians, provincial courts, Vancouver police, doctors and, after initial resistance, local businesses. But the Harper government has announced it will challenge the special exemption at the Supreme Court, because it believes the clinic encourages drug use.
It doesn't bother providing facts, or even arguments; it appeals, as usual, to resentment, ignorance and frightening headlines that obscure the fact that crime rates have been declining. And, with the brave exception of Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe, most of Harper's political opponents, including those who know better, are afraid to object. If Conservatives were as concerned with victims as they claim to be, the effectiveness of crime-fighting measures would be paramount -- not their political appeal. And they'd be counselling wisdom in this complex issue, not revenge.
Susan Riley writes on national issues. E-mail: sriley.work@gmail.com
