Conservatives
Put Their Own Crime Legislation Back to Stage One
By:
Marlene Jennings, Liberal Justice Critic and Member of Parliament for
Notre-Dame-de-Grâce-Lachine
While the Conservative government is focused exclusively on exploiting criminal justice issues for partisan gain, the Liberal Party is again renewing its efforts to actually pass legislation that would protect Canadian communities as quickly as possible.
Last Thursday, Stephen Harper’s government proposed legislation to tackle violent crime. Their new bill, however, will actually delay implementation of these measures. The bill is simply a repackaging of past bills, most of which have already passed through the House of Commons and were in the final stages of approval in the Senate. Mr. Harper is actually unnecessarily moving previously passed legislation through the House of Commons a second time so that he can accuse the Liberal Party of delay for yet another session of parliament. This is one of the most politically manipulative measures I have ever seen and has nothing to do with making Canadians safer.
The new Tackling Violent Crime Bill (Bill C-2) is simply an amalgamation of five pieces of justice legislation that were introduced by the Conservatives in the last session. The five bills dealt with mandatory minimum sentences (C-10), the age of consent (C-22), the dangerous offender regime (C-27), impaired driving (C-32) and bail reform (C-35). All five of those bills have already passed second reading in the House of Commons, with three of them already sent to the Senate.
By re-introducing these measures rolled together as a new bill, they are discarding the work already done, slowing down the process by starting over and misleading Canadians who clearly want to see this legislation passed.
A year ago we offered our support to this government to pass six criminal justice bills as quickly as possible, but rather than accepting our offer, they chose to play partisan politics, only actually fast-tracking one bill - the street racing legislation. Then, in March of this year, we renewed our offer to work with the government to fast track various crime bills through Parliament. Unfortunately, they actually preferred to delay their own crime legislation to allow them to complain of Opposition delay.
Now, to prevent another Conservative procedural roadblock, the Liberal Party has again proposed that all parties agree that the bill be deemed adopted at second reading so it can move immediately to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice. This is yet another in a long string of offers that the Liberal Party has made to advance this justice legislation.
While the government makes threats, the Liberal Party is working to make progress.
The Liberal Party has put forward a comprehensive plan to ensure that we are focused on the one deterrent we know actually works – the fear of getting caught. That is why we have committed a future Liberal government to putting more police officers on the street, more prosecutors in the courts and appointing more judges. This will ensure the criminal justice system has the tools necessary to catch criminals and actually convict them of the crimes they have committed.
A new Liberal government would immediately convene a roundtable meeting of the Federal, Provincial and Territorial Ministers, to commence discussions on developing a long-term sustainable cost-sharing arrangement for additional police officers. That roundtable meeting would include representatives of the Canadian Association of Police Boards (CAPB), Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP) and Canadian Police Association (CPA) who, earlier this year, sent a joint letter to the Conservative government demanding action on community policing.
The Liberal crime strategy is a sharp contrast to the Conservative government’s focus on rhetoric and fear-mongering. This is a government satisfied to create the appearance that it is tough on crime, but does not back its rhetoric with action. How can they explain their repeated tactic of delaying their own crime legislation, while trying to blame their lack of progress on the Opposition? Why have they neglected their own campaign promise to provide money for additional front-line police officers on our streets, despite calls for assistance from police associations?
The only explanation is that the Conservatives’ crime policies are more about scoring political headlines than making our streets safer. Victims of crime don't care about politics or headlines. They just want to know that criminals will be stopped, caught and punished.
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