SENATORS GO TO POT

When told about the Liberal-dominated Senate's revisions to the
government's latest tough-on-crime bill, the former drug dealer
howled with laughter.

"They wanna WHAT?" he said incredulously. "It's like they're
encouraging grow-ops on reserves. It's so crazy, it's almost like a set-up."

The Harper Tories are furious with the Senate's changes to Bill C-15,
which they say weakens it to the point of uselessness.

But some members of Alberta's aboriginal communities fear the
revisions would allow organized crime to exploit impoverished,
desperate people living on reserves, by paying them to grow weed. "It
will be like the Taliban and the opium trade in Afghanistan," said
the former dealer.

Bill C-15 was supposed to impose mandatory minimum sentences on
people who grow marijuana. The Tories wanted everyone convicted of
growing more than five pot plants to get at least six months.

But this week the Liberal-dominated Senate amended the bill, raising
the threshold to 200 plants and adding several exceptions.

Among those exempted from mandatory minimum sentences are aboriginal people.

"That would really open the door for people to come up here and take
advantage of us. It's crazy," said Dwight Gladue, a leader among the
Lubicon Cree in Little Buffalo, 300 km north of Edmonton.

Little Buffalo is a tiny, secluded community just off a major
highway. It's out of the way, but easily accessible.

"We don't have a problem with grow-ops now, but this could really
make us vulnerable," he said.

Len Untereiner agreed. The head of the Edmonton-based Spirit Keeper
Youth Society said, "this is just opening it up to create more
victims. And many of our communities have suffered enough already."

Under the Liberal amendments, there's nothing preventing a judge from
imposing harsh sentences on native pot farmers, but, Untereiner said,
their underlying message is disturbing.

"As a First Nations person, I'm insulted by this. The law should
apply to everybody, regardless of race, creed or colour."

Untereiner said that if the Liberal Senators are worried about
disproportionate numbers of natives in jail, they should be pushing
for more social programs to keep them from getting into trouble with
the law in the first place, not giving them lighter penalties after
they commit crimes.

Edmonton police Sgt. Tony Simioni, who's on the board of the Canadian
Police Association, called the suggestion that groups of people
should be treated differently under the law "very paternalistic. I
just don't like it on principle."

Edmonton St. Albert Tory MP Brent Rathgeber, who sits on the
government's justice committee, said the Liberal amendments "not only
diminish the effectiveness (of Bill C-15), they create a whole array
of unanticipated problems. It's going to encourage the development of
this industry among First Nations communities."

He doubts such provisions are acceptable under the constitution.

The bill will come back to the Commons when it resumes sitting in
January. From there, it will either be passed, or sent back to the
justice committee for more revisions.

"I have a real problem with the unaccountable and unelected Senate
doing this type of damage to what I think was very, very well drafted
and well thought out piece of legislation," Rathgeber said.