Liberal
Government’s Justice Strategy: Effective Justice is More than a Slogan
Op-Ed
by Marlene Jennings, Liberal Justice Critic
Stephen
Harper’s Conservatives have shown they are more interested in making
headlines and spouting slogans than actually taking concrete action to
fight crime.
Look
beyond their bluster, and what do you see? They have refused to fulfill
their campaign promise to hire more police officers, stalled their own law
and order agenda while blaming the opposition, and have secretly been
chipping away at gun control by stealth, behind the scenes.
Canadians
expect and deserve better from their government.
They expect a tough, effective strategy to fight crime and make our
communities safer, and they deserve to have their rights respected.
That’s exactly what the Liberal opposition believes in –
policies that protect us, our homes and our rights.
What
Canada needs is a comprehensive approach that fights every facet of crime.
We need a plan that will prevent crime before it happens, catch
criminals when they commit crimes, convict criminals with competent and
timely administration, and rehabilitate convicted criminals.
A justice strategy that ignores any of these aspects cannot
possibly succeed.
Instead
of relying on measures that won’t yield real results, the Liberal plan
focuses on the one deterrent we know for a fact actually works – the
certainty of getting caught and convicted.
We would drive this reality home by putting more police officers on
the streets, more prosecutors in the courts and more judges on the bench
in communities across the country.
To
this end, we would allocate an additional $200 million to the RCMP to hire
400 additional officers for a new Rapid Enforcement Team. This team would
provide immediate support to local police forces to combat gun and gang
activity, organized crime and drug trafficking.
We
would give policing organizations the direct support they need by
providing money for additional front-line officers – money the
Conservatives promised but didn’t deliver.
This would be followed up with more resources for prosecutors and
the appointment of more judges.
We
would also bring together Federal, Provincial and Territorial Ministers
with representatives of the Canadian Association of Police Boards (CAPB),
the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP) and the Canadian
Police Association (CPA) to develop a long-term sustainable cost-sharing
arrangement for additional local community police officers.
Ensuring
our communities are safe and secure is a Liberal priority.
That’s why last fall we offered our support to the Conservative
government to pass six criminal justice bills as quickly as possible.
But rather than accept our offer, the government chose to play
partisan politics and only fast-tracked one of the six bills.
In
March, we renewed our offer to work with the government to quickly pass
several crime bills, including legislation on Conditional Sentencing; DNA
Identification; Street Racing; Age of Consent; Criminal Procedure; Pay Day
Loans and Reverse Onus in Bail Hearings.
While
we managed to overcome Conservative obstructionism to successfully push
forward some of these bills, far too many of them remain deadlocked
because of the Conservatives’ preference for roadblocks over progress.
Prime
Minister Harper talks a good game about getting tough on crime, but
Canadians are beginning to realize that this government’s actions do not
match its words. Ultimately,
it is the Canadian people who will decide who is serious about protecting
our communities. I am
confident they will choose Liberal action for effective justice, not
Conservative rhetoric and sloganeering.
