The Ominous Omnibus and Mandatory Minimum Sense

In which the Tories decide the best solution for the unemployed is just to throw them in prison.

The Tories have unveiled their Gazillion-Dollar Pot-Growers Act, and, whoo boy, the critics are not pleased. The Globe and Mail's editorialists are able to find some good in the bill (axing house arrest for violent offenders, for one), but not much, saying that it goes “too far,” particularly with its obsession over mandatory-minimum sentences. “Judges can't be trusted to get it right, in the government's view,” sighs the Globe, wondering why the Tories are so keen to take “a page from the discredited war-on-drugs handbook.” Those mandatory minimums, such as six months for growing between as few as six marijuana plants, make even less sense “because Canadians generally don't see it as a serious crime,” and certainly not one that would require otherwise peaceable people to populate prisons. That there are some merits to this bill only makes us wish that the Tories had the good graces to introduce the packaged bills individually and let them each be debated – and possibly improved – in Parliament.

Ethan Baron of The Vancouver Province lands the heaviest blow against the bill so far by noting that someone who's “caught growing 201 pot plants in a rental unit would receive a longer mandatory sentence than someone who rapes a toddler or forces a five-year-old to have sex with an animal.” We're not even going to try to top that. But we will also highlight Baron's point that under the new bill, the proportion of B.C.'s inmates that are in prison due to marijuana offences would jump from five per cent to 30 per cent, at a cost of about $70,000 a year each. Since most of those offenders will end up in provincial correctional facilities, it will fall to the provinces to foot the bill. Just why the government is so fixated on mandatory minimums is beyond comprehension, frankly, as the U.S. – where the whole concept originated – has steadily backed away from them in recent years because prison costs skyrocketed upon their introduction. And what's that? The Tories don't have a clue as to how much the bill is going to cost us? Hmmm, we wonder how this will end up...

The Toronto Star's editorialists are even less impressed with the Tory priorities, as the untold billions that the bill will no doubt cost taxpayers “would be better invested in economic growth, productivity, and creating jobs.” Beyond “tackling Canada’s No. 1 non-problem: The crime wave that isn’t sweeping the land,” the editorialists (and we, and anyone with a working brain) take issue with why the Tories are more concerned with kiddie porn than unemployment, or health care, or the threat of a second recession. (Recall that Statscan reported just last month that crime is at its lowest level in Canada since records began, too.) We're of the mind that this bill marks the moment when the Tories officially lose their credibility as stewards of the economy – they've sacrificed the country's prosperity and values at the alter of ideology. The 41st Parliament has got off to a foul start. We would like to think its reached it's nadir, but as Justice Minister Rob Nicholson (let's just call him Bob the Destroyer) said yesterday, “this is just the beginning.” You've been warned.