A Criminal Policy

By eliminating the faint hope clause, the Conservative government would risk the safety of those who work in Canada's prisons.

Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan has complained that a fall election will kill critical anti-crime legislation currently before the House of Commons and the Senate, bills that would eliminate the faint hope clause and impose mandatory minimums for drug crime.

Never mind that it was the Conservatives themselves who killed similar anti-crime legislation before calling the last election. What’s more stunning is that Mr. Van Loan has the nerve to describe these bills as critical to crime reduction and crime prevention.

The elimination of the faint hope clause will affect only a handful of convicted murderers in any given year, and the irony is that it would remove the public – a jury of 12 men and women – from having any input into the potential release of a person convicted of murder. Is it not a familiar Conservative refrain that the communities affected by crime are never consulted? If so, why eliminate the faint hope clause? There’s no evidence that community safety will be improved – and such legislation certainly wouldn’t enhance the safety of the men and women who work in Canada’s prisons.

Even more questionable are the extremely expensive mandatory minimums for drug crime, depriving the judiciary of the possibility of tailoring the punishment to fit the crime. If the legislation here was smart and focused, it might be easy to support – target those who have guns and spring traps in grow-ops and those who expose children to public safety risks in the course of illegal drug distribution; or creatively increase the use of financial penalties to take the profit out of the industry.

But that’s not what they’re doing. Anyone who sells any amount of any illegal drug, and anyone who grows more than five marijuana plants will go to jail for a minimum term of six months. Who does this legislation target? User-dealers with addiction and mental health problems, and marijuana growers who are neither predatory nor violent. Just take a look at who gets arrested and convicted of illegal drug trafficking in Canada today – they are almost always small-time user-dealers; only a tiny percentage of those convicted are kingpins of the industry. And most marijuana growers are capable of cultivation without imposing harms upon their communities (other than the harms occasioned by use of their product, not nearly as significant as the harms of products like tobacco or alcohol).

These election bills should die on the order paper. The Tories aren’t tough on crime; they’re stupid on crime. What’s disappointing is that Mr. Ignatieff and the Liberals have been so unwilling to challenge the morally and scientifically bankrupt agenda that the Tories have been advancing. There’s still time, however, and it’s quite likely that Canadians would listen. It’s fine to be tough on crime – on people who are violent and predatory – but let’s make sure that our legislation is actually up to the task.