Please call back in four years

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, August 16, 2011 at 1:23 PM - 70 Comments

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson responds to the concerns of the Canadian Bar Association.

“From coast to coast one thing is clear, Canadians want to see their communities as safe places to live, raise their families and do business. We have listened to Canadians and with the strong mandate we have received, we’ll continue to act on their behalf,” he said.

In case Conservative voters did not fully understand the significance of their ballot, the government has been very specific in the few months since May’s election, invoking their mandate to explain back to work legislation for Canada Post, job cuts at the Department of Human Resources and Skills Development, reducing the corporate tax rate, cuts to Audit Services Canada, the consolidation of search and rescue resources, a $600 increase in the guaranteed income supplement, the end of the Canadian Wheat Board, the elimination of the long-form census, Senate reform, the Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada’s Immigration System Act, back to work legislation for Air Canada employees, the Fair and Efficient Criminal Trials Act, free trade, tourism, war in Libya, the elimination of the per-vote subsidy, sales tax harmonization with the provinces, cuts to the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency as well as meaningful and thoughtful House debate.

On second thought

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, February 10, 2011 at 12:56 PM - 82 Comments

From their scrum yesterday, Michael Ignatieff and Mark Holland explain the Liberal side’s decision to oppose Bill S-10.

Ignatieff: We’ve taken a long hard look at S-10, this mandatory minimum proposal of the government. We’ve tried to amend it, to no avail. It’s going to add huge amounts of money to Canadian prison costs. It’s going to target young – young people, you know, a guy who gets messed up with Tylenol 3 or has six marijuana plants, gets a mandatory minimum. We just think this is not the right way to go for Canadian justice policy. It follows a failed American model so we’re going to vote against it.

Holland: Canadian churches, Canadian health care providers and those on the front lines of stopping crime and stopping victimization in this country say this bill won’t work. And this bill will burden us with billions of dollars in new costs for prisons. It will send us down the same path California walked, the same path that the United Kingdom is now trying to undo. We simply can’t afford it. It will crush us. It will steal from priorities like health care and education and at the end of the day make our communities less safe.

Of note: when Parliament resumed business last month, the Conservatives vowed that no votes, aside from the budget, would be considered matters of confidence.

Are all these people soft on crime?

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, February 8, 2011 at 11:47 AM - 31 Comments

Two weeks ago, a group representing 11 religious denominations expressed its objections to the government’s justice program. Now, it’s a group of 500 health professionals that is registering its concern.

“We, the undersigned, are concerned that the federal government is pursuing significant amendments to federal drug legislation, through Bill S-10, which are not scientifically grounded and which research demonstrates may actually contribute to health and social harms in our communities,” the health professionals say in the letter.

They say there is no evidence that mandatory minimum sentences will reduce drug use or deter crime, that the sentences would have a disproportionately negative impact on young people and members of Canada’s aboriginal communities, and that they would have a negative impact on public health and HIV rates.

Meanwhile, the New York Times looks at Insite, the safe injection site in Vancouver that the Harper government opposes.

Evidence matters

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, March 17, 2010 at 4:16 PM - 77 Comments

In his YouTube interview last night, the Prime Minister cited “evidence” in explaining his government’s crime policy. Dan Gardner congratulates Mr. Harper, then mocks.

Harper is right that certainty, not severity, deters crime. But that “certainty” is not the “certainty” of getting prison time when you stand in front of a judge to hear your sentence. It’s the certainty of getting caught. Sentencing? Is Harper serious? At the time someone is contemplating a crime, sentencing is a vague notion far away in a distant future that the would-be criminal seldom considers because — please note — would-be criminals tend to be impulsive people who do not consider the future consequences of their actions… even if they know what the sentence for a crime is, which they probably don’t because would-be criminals also tend to be badly educated and poorly informed.

Oddly enough, Mr. Harper’s Justice Department has so far been unable to provide any evidence that suggests mandatory minimums deter crime (or, for that matter, that the sentences it is legislating differ from the sentences that are already being enforced).

On second thought (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, February 1, 2010 at 11:45 AM - 25 Comments

The Hill Times discovers that Rob Nicholson was vice-chair of a Parliamentary committee that, in 1988, advised against pursuing mandatory minimums. Mr. Nicholson’s director of communications attempts to explain the distance between that report and the Justice Minister’s current rhetoric.

Geneviève Breton, Mr. Nicholson’s (Niagara Falls, Ont.) director of communications, said in an email to The Hill Times that the justice system and the drug world are different than they were 22 years ago, and therefore the government’s response has also changed …”Parliament is expected to draft and enact laws that clearly articulate the legislators’ intent, which is reflective of the values of the citizens who elected them. It is the role of the legislator to give guidance to the judiciary on maximum penalties, as well as on minimum penalties. For certain offences, our Government firmly believes that a minimum period of incarceration is justified,” Ms. Breton stated.

It is perhaps instructive to refer back to John Geddes’ attempt to understand the basis for the government’s current approach and Pierre Poilievre’s musings on the value of such policy.

Soft on evidence

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, November 10, 2009 at 1:57 PM - 45 Comments

Our John Geddes looks at the government’s crime policies.

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson doesn’t offer up any departmental research at all to support the Tories’ major law-and-order thrust. Nor does Nicholson rely on reports by independent experts to buttress his case for telling judges how long they must lock up criminals for a slew of offences. Instead, in response to requests from Maclean’s for any analysis or data justifying the new minimum sentences, his office produced a 1,000-word memo explaining the policy. It candidly admits that research doesn’t offer persuasive evidence that mandatory minimum penalties, called MMPs for short, reduce crime. “In our opinion,” it says, “the studies are inconclusive particularly with respect to the main debate: do MMPs deter crime?”

If they can’t be shown to act as a deterrent, why put MMPs at the core of the government’s high-profile anti-crime push? Nicholson offers a list of seven other reasons … The top item on Nicholson’s seven-point list: “ensure victims feel that justice has been rendered.” And the second: “ensure that the amount of time served is proportional to the gravity of the offence” … This seemingly irrefutable line of reasoning, however, rests on the premise that the government knows sentences now being handed down by the courts are too light. In fact, they often haven’t bothered to collect that information. Nicholson’s office and his departmental officials admit they have not compiled statistics on typical sentences in convictions for most of the crimes they’ve targeted for MMPs. And it’s not always clear the new minimum terms will be any tougher than the sentences often imposed up to now.

Rhetorical question of the day

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, October 19, 2009 at 3:33 PM - 23 Comments

Liberal Todd Russell, yelling in the direction of Rob Nicholson this afternoon as the Justice Minister took a friendly question about crime legislation.

“What’s the mandatory minimum for cheque fraud?”

Rob Nicholson needs a hug

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, October 6, 2009 at 10:45 AM - 9 Comments

Going back to June and including each of his answers since announcing the government would comply with a court order to bring Abousfian Abdelrazik home, here, for your enjoyment, are the last eight responses offered by Justice Minister Rob Nicholson in Question Period.

Continue…

Experts (IV)

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, March 3, 2009 at 10:37 AM - 31 Comments

Dan Gardner has written extensively on this stuff, but this column of his might be the most entertaining on the topic—Gardner asks the Justice department to provide the research used to support its move toward mandatory minimums, hilarity ensues.

Experts (III)

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, March 3, 2009 at 12:43 AM - 15 Comments

Highlighted conclusions of a 2002 survey, conducted for the Justice department, on the deterrent value of mandatory minimum sentencing.

The evidence was mixed with regard to the impact of more generalized MMS of the “Three Strikes” variety.

Enhanced sentences for firearms infractions show some promise, although findings here, too, are inconsistent or unclear.

While the evidence overall underscores the critical role played by vigorous law enforcement and the certainty of punishment in this area [impaired driving], studies provide little reason for optimism with regard to the efficacy of tough sanctions.

Severe MMS seem to be least effective in relation to drug offences.

Drug consumption and drug-related crime seem to be unaffected, in any measurable way, by severe MMS.

MMS calling for lengthy prison terms are likely to carry massive costs.

MMS, such as the Three Strikes and federal drug laws in the US, have produced some grossly disproportionate sentences.