TORY MPS UNHAPPY WITH SENATE

Portage-Lisgar Member of Parliament Candice Hoeppner slammed the
Liberal-dominated Senate for making amendments to a Conservative
anti-crime bill.

Hoeppner said the amendments, made by the Senate's Legal and
Constitutional Affairs Committee, have weakened the bill and
undermined the intent of it.

" Our focus and our goal was to crack down on drug traffickers,"
Hoeppner said of Bill C-15 in an interview just prior to her annual
Tea with the MP event in Portage la Prairie Wednesday.

Under the legislation, persons found guilty of trafficking who also
had previous drug convictions would have received a minimum one-year
prison term. With the new amendments of the Senate, mandatory terms
would apply only if the offenders had spent a year or more behind bars
for their previous conviction.

Hoeppner said the Conservative government aimed to target people who
sold drugs to children and the amendments, including taking away
mandatory jail time for anyone growing up to 200 marijuana plants,
would weaken that aspect of it.

" As a mother, it bothers me," she said, accusing the Liberals of
being soft on crime.

Vic Toews, President of the Treasury Board and Member of Parliament
for Provencher, lent his voice to the condemnation of the amendments.

" This important legislation establishes mandatory penalties for
serious drug crimes," Toews said in a press release. " It's been
before the Senate since last June! And now the Liberal Senators have
passed amendments, creating major loopholes and further delaying this
urgently-needed legislation."

The legislation proposes mandatory prison sentences if the offence of
trafficking is carried out for organized crime purposes; or a weapon
or violence is involved; the drug is sold to youth; or the trafficking
offence takes place near a school or an area normally frequented by
youth. A minimum sentence would also apply if the production of the
illegal drug constitutes a potential security, health or safety hazard
to children or a residential community.

In addition, under this legislation the maximum penalties for drug
production would increase from seven to 14 years.

The mandatory sentences contained in Bill C-15 do not apply to simple
possession offences.

Both Hoeppner and Toews laid responsibility for the amendments
squarely at the feet of Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff .

But Senator Joan Fraser, chairwoman of the Senate's Legal and
Constitutional Affairs Committee and a member of the Liberal party,
said the committee wanted to bring some balance into the bill and in
no way intended to weaken it.

" The purpose of the bill is to go after criminals and organized
crime," Fraser said, noting it was a well-intentioned bill.

But with such stringent measures, she noted, such as jail time for
someone growing as little as five plants, it risked punishing people
who may just be growing plants for their own personal use who didn't
deserve the punishment.

" It risked scooping up more people right down at the bottom who were
not targeted," she said.

The Senate committee heard from 62 witnesses about the bill, she
continued, both for it and opposing it, before the 12member committee
voted in favour of the amendments.

Among those witnesses were experts in the field of crime, members of
the Canadian Bar Association and witnesses from the United States,
which is slowly moving away from mandatory sentences, Fraser said. Of
the 12 members on the committee, four are Conservative, one is an
independent and seven are Liberal, including Fraser.

From the Senate, she explained, the bill will now go back to the House
of Commons where MPs will vote on whether to accept the amendments or
not. If they are accepted, the bill will receive royal ascent and
become law, and if rejected it goes back to the House of Commons for
further debate.