Pubdate: Wed, 07 Mar 2012
Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
Copyright: 2012 The Globe and Mail Company
Contact:  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/168
Author: Gloria Galloway

TOUGH-ON-CRIME TRIO HAILS IMMINENT PASSAGE OF CONTROVERSIAL TORY BILL

A broad slate of justice measures - many of them contentious for their
cost and for the limits they place on judicial discretion - is about
to become law as the House of Commons puts an omnibus Conservative
crime bill to a final vote.

The bill, which the opposition says will fill prisons without making
streets safer, has been returned by the Senate to the House of Commons
with amendments to allow terrorism victims and their families to sue
state sponsors of terror.

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson will be joined on Wednesday by
Conservative MP Julian Fantino, a former police chief, and Senator
Pierre-Hugues Boivenu, a victims-rights advocate, at an event in
Woodbridge, Ont. to celebrate the imminent passage of Bill C-10.

"Our government is once again sending out a message to criminals that
they will be accountable for their actions and that crime will not be
tolerated in this country," Mr. Nicholson told the Commons on Tuesday.
"Our goal is to restore a sense of balance so that Canadians can
continue to be confident in our justice system."

The bill could be put to a final vote as early as Wednesday evening.
It incorporates nine separate pieces of legislation that the
Conservatives failed to enact into law during their years of minority
government. Some have been reintroduced more than once without getting
through Parliament.

Most of the measures will increase the amount of time that offenders
must spend in jail or impose mandatory minimum sentences. Others will
end house arrest for a broad spectrum of crimes, change the rules
around pardons, and give the Public Safety Minister more leeway to
deny the transfer back to Canada of citizens convicted abroad.

The amendments to the legislation that were passed by the Senate are
similar to those proposed by Liberal MP Irwin Cotler when the bill was
before the Commons justice committee.

They were rejected by the Conservative MPs on that committee and, by
the time the government decided they were important additions to the
legislation, it was too late to make changes to the bill in the
Commons. So it was up to Tories in the Senate, specifically Senator
Bob Runciman, to make the amendments.

The remaining 17 changes suggested by Liberal opposition senators were
rejected, including a proposal to increase from six to 20 the number
of marijuana plants that someone could be caught growing before facing
a mandatory minimum sentence of six months.

The Liberal senators also argued the legislation will be particularly
harsh on aboriginal offenders who already occupy a disproportionate
number of cells in federal and provincial corrections facilities. But
the Conservatives would not be swayed.

With one final opportunity to debate what they see as serious flaws in
the bill, the opposition attacked measures that they say are tough on
criminals but not on crime.

"The cost of the implications of imprisonment need to be weighed
against more cost-efficient ways to decrease offender recidivism and
responsible use of public funds," Jack Harris, the NDP justice critic,
told the House of Commons. "Evidence from other sources suggest more
effective alternatives to reducing recidivism than imprisonment."
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