LIBERAL SENATORS MAY BUCKLE AND PASS TORIES' 'FLAWED' CRIME BILLS

The Liberals voted with the Tories on drug bill because they're scared
of being labelled soft on crime.

The government's two crime bills currently held up in the Senate are
"flawed," and could be unconstitutional, but the Liberals are afraid
of being labelled soft on crime and Grit Senators may succumb to
political pressure and vote against amending the bills, says a Liberal
Senator who supports the amendments.

"There is a real possibility that the amendments may be turned down by
the Senate," said Newfoundland Liberal Senator George Baker.

"And then the problems would cease and the bill would pass on third
reading as it is, without amendment. And the same thing may happen to
the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act [Bill C-15]."

The two bills, C-25, and C-15 are part of the government's touted law
and order agenda. The first bill, C-25, would eliminate the practice
whereby convicted criminals can get two-for-one credit for each day
they spend in pre-trial custody before being convicted. Critics of the
law say criminals who know they will be convicted sometimes refuse
bail and choose to remain in remand in order to shorten the total
amount of time they'll have to spend in jail. The second bill, C-15,
would bring in mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes, which
would change the law so that someone caught with as few as five
marijuana plants would spend a minimum of six months in jail.

Sen. Baker said he disagrees with the "general philosophy" behind both
bills, but aside from that, he also said the bills contain enough
legal errors to justify the Senate bringing in amendments. For
example, Bill C-15 stipulates that if drug offenders agree to go to a
so-called drug court, through which they can broker a plea deal that
usually involves treatment and random drug tests, then they can get
out of doing jail time. Drug courts only exist in six Canadian
cities-Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Ottawa and Regina-and
so if you don't live in one of those cities you don't have the option
of avoiding jail. Bill C-25 says a judge does not have to explain why
someone charged with a crime is refused bail, which Sen. Baker said
was red-flagged by expert witnesses when the Senate Legal and
Constitutional Affairs Committee studied the bill.

The Conservatives have been attacking the opposition Liberals in the
House of Commons and the media for the Liberal-dominated Senate
holding up the bills. The Tories say it proves Liberal Leader Michael
Ignatieff (Etobicoke-Lakeshore, Ont.) and his caucus are "soft on
crime," even though they voted to pass both bills.

"What the Liberal Party should do...is go down to the Senate and,
instead of playing this two-faced game where they pretend to support
tough-on-crime legislation but block it in the Senate, they should
tell their own Senators to be honest with the Canadian people, to pass
that legislation and stop letting criminals get away," Prime Minister
Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) said recently in Question
Period.

The Senate Justice Committee voted to change the two-for-one law to
time-and-a-half served, meaning convicts would get 1.5 days' credit
for every day served pre-sentencing, as opposed to eliminating it
altogether, which Bill C-25 proposes. The amendment would also give
judges discretion in awarding pre-sentencing credits, and would
require an explanation for their decision. No amendments have yet been
proposed for Bill C-15, but they are expected to be forthcoming since
the Senate voted to examine it in committee. Some of the Senators who
proposed the amendments supported Liberal MP Bob Rae (Toronto Centre,
Ont.) during his 2006 leadership bid, which led to speculation that
Mr. Rae urged them to stall the bill to create headaches for Mr.
Ignatieff, which Mr. Rae denied.

Sen. Baker also said his colleagues in the Senate might not want to
provide the Tories with any more ammunition to attack Mr. Ignatieff.

"Liberal Senators may sit down and say, 'Look, the leader and the
Liberal Party in the House of Commons is in favour of this bill. They
don't want changes made to it. This is what the declaration was, so
therefore we're going to vote against these amendments that the
[Senate] committee has approved.' That is a real possibility," said
Sen. Baker.

Bill C-25 was unanimously passed in the House of Commons, but Bill
C-15, which would change Canada's Controlled Drugs and Substances Act,
passed without the support of the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois. The
Liberals joined forces with the Harper government to pass it. When the
House of Commons Justice Committee studied the latter bill, witnesses
were overwhelmingly critical of the use of mandatory minimums in
relation to drug offences. A 2001 government report done by the
Justice Department reached the same conclusions.

"Mandatory minimum sentences in the U.S. [both at the state and
federal levels] have imprisoned mostly low-level, nonviolent
offenders. Drug consumption and drug-related crime seem to be
unaffected, in any measurable way," the report said.

Mandatory minimum sentences will lead to more overcrowding of prisons
in Canada, and also remove some of the discretionary powers of judges
and put them in the hands of politicians and the police, said Eugene
Oscapella, who teaches drug policy at the University of Ottawa. He
said that despite the overwhelming opposition from experts, and
evidence that more comprehensive drug policy that focuses on treatment
and reserves tough sentences for high-level drug dealers has been far
more effective, the Tories and the Liberals are taking the path they
believe is the most politically expedient.

"Promising to get tough on crime, to get tough on drugs, it's easy. It
fits on a bumper sticker. To explain why the use of the criminal law
not only doesn't work but causes enormous harm to society, takes a lot
longer," he said. "Obviously the Liberals think the Canadian public
can't be trusted with the facts, and so they're doing exactly the same
thing the Conservative government is doing. They're trying to out
tough each other."

Last week The Globe and Mail reported the government plans to increase
the size, and budget for federal penitentiaries in order to
accommodate the influx of prisoners resulting from the new crime
bills. The annual budget for prisons has grown from $88.5-million in
2006-07 to $195.1-million this year. And is projected to reach
$211.6-million in 2010-11.

Prof. Oscapella, who testified before the House of Commons committee
that was studying the bill in the spring, pointed to Justice Minister
Rob Nicholson's (Niagara Falls, Ont.) remarks to the committee on
April 22 as proof the government's only reason for bringing in the
mandatory minimums is political. Mr. Nicholson was repeatedly asked
what evidence the government had that mandatory minimums were effective.

"We're absolutely convinced, from our consultation with Canadians,
that this is exactly what Canadians want us to do. ... We have the
evidence that Canadians have told us that," Mr. Nicholson responded.
Past Liberal governments have put forward bills to decriminalize the
possession of small amounts of marijuana, in 2003 and in 2004, but
both times the bills ended up dying on the order paper and were never
reintroduced. Liberal MP Keith Martin (Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, B.C.),
who abstained from the whipped vote on bill C-15, said his party
supported the legislation because they're spooked by Conservative
attacks that they're not tough on crime.

"That's an Achilles heel for the Liberal Party, that we're perceived
as being soft on crime when we're not. And we have done an appalling
job of communicating what we have done," he said.

NDP MP Libby Davies (Vancouver East, B.C.) said the Liberals missed an
opportunity to show they weren't buying into the Conservatives'
"politics of fear."

"People are fearful about drug use in their neighbourhoods, parents
are very worried about their kids, and what the Conservatives do is
play on that fear," she said. "Instead of having an honest debate
about drug policy and what we need to do in our society they say, 'Oh,
we'll just come out with a tougher law'."

Once a mandatory minimum law is on the books it's not easily repealed
in the future, and most Canadians don't believe marijuana possession
is something people should be sent to prison for, said Ms. Davies.

"There's loads and loads of people who are very worried about their
kids, or young people, or students having a sentence because they pass
a joint to someone. ... The thousands of Canadians who have
convictions just from marijuana, simple possession, is huge. I think
people are very concerned about that because they don't see it as
something that should result in a criminal record."

A 2007 United Nations report found that Canadians use marijuana at
four times the world average, making it the leader of the
industrialized world in consumption of the drug. The report revealed
that 16.8 per cent of Canadians aged 15 to 64 smoked marijuana, while
the world average is 3.8 per cent. Canada ranks fifth in the world for
marijuana use.