WE CAN ONLY GET TOUGH ON CRIME IF LEGISLATION IS UP TO THE TASK

Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan has complained that a fall
election will kill critical anti-crime legislation currently before
the House of Commons, 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 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 focussed, 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 --
and creatively increase the use of financial penalties to take the
profit out of the industry.

But that's not what they're doing. Any one 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
Liberal leader Michael 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.