Excerptcize

Following through with what his spokesperson indicated at the time of the prorogation of parliament,  Prime Minister Harper made five new appointments to the Senate this past Friday, bringing the Conservative Party to a total of 51 seats in the 105 member body. While that number does not represent an outright majority, holding a plurality in the chamber (much as the Conservatives do in the House) will manifest itself with a larger Conservative presence on reconstituted committees once parliament reconvenes, as well as greater sway of Senate’s agenda. Kady O’Malley has a nice rundown on each of the new senators here at the CBC’s Inside Politics blog.

Wasting no time in indicating how this new found power in the upper chamber will be wielded, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson held a press conference on Friday with two of the new senators. Much as they have since first forming a minority government in 2006, it appears the Conservatives will ride the perennially popular stance of being “tough on crime” as much as possible; all 5 new appointees shared the ‘tough’ credential, while Minister Nicholson made sure to colour the Opposition with dread “soft on crime” label. The minister even went so far as to imply that opposition parties, especially Liberal members of the senate, were actively preventing the administration of justice. The Globe and Mail was quick to note that:

In fact, of the 17 crime bills introduced by the federal Conservative government in the last session, only two were held up in the Senate for more than six months. Most died on the order paper when Mr. Harper prorogued Parliament in late December.

As a campaign stance, being “tough on crime” is one of the oldest plays in the book as it is a virtually an unassailable position; who could be said to be against improvements in public safety? But what does getting “tough” mean from a governing standpoint? So far, it seems to consist of widening the scope of, as well as lengthening mandatory minimum sentences. Much of the governments introduced crime legislation on this front has been amended through debate in the House (funny how a minority government will do that.) As has been noted by many others, this does not sit will with Mr. Harper. With the new arrangement of the Senate and most of the uncompleted work of Parliament ‘dying on the docket’ when it was prorogued, some bills are set to be reintroduced in the Senate in their original language when parliament reconvenes. With so much attention being heeded crime and public safety, it is worth taking a moment to take a look at crime levels as they currently stand in Canada:

From the ‘The Daily‘, a regular feature of the Stats Can webpage, here is the overall police reported crime rate, as well as the Crime Severity Index:

Declining Crime Rate: 1998-2008

And from the Juristat report ‘Homicide in Canada 2008′, the homicide rate per 100, 000 people from 1961-2008:

Canadian homicide rate: 1961-2008

Improving the safety of Canadians is always a worthy goal. Some perspective on the levels that crime affects Canadians is also needed. In the first graph, we see the reported crime rate consistently falling through out the last decade. In the second, we can that the homicide rate peaked in the late ’70′s and then began decreasing, remaining mostly stable through the last ten years. While I do not personally take issue with lengthening potential sentences for particular crimes, the concept of mandatory minimum sentencing is one that I wholly reject, not without cause either based on how that experiment has ended up in the States. The application of the law is a sticky business and that has always been the case. As with most aspects of life, things are not cut and dry, black and white very often. This is why we employ an experienced judiciary to administer sentencing. One size fits all sentencing does not increase the efficacy of justice.

Another piece of interesting (and saddening) information from the same Juristat report mentioned above comes in the form of the graphic below:

Increasing levels of homicides related to gang activity

In contrast to the decreasing trends in overall crime and homicide in the first two graphs, there is a very clear, and large increase in the level of homicides related to gang activity. I would think that legislative action attempting to address this problem would be in order if one truly wanted to take up the ‘getting tough on crime mantle.’ For my part, I think that looking at decriminalizing some parts of the drug trade and the outright sanctioning and taxing of other narcotics such as marijuana would go along way to decreasing gang activity and allow for better allocation of police resources, but for one reason or another I imagine this would be a non-starter with most Conservatives.

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