CONTROVERSIAL CRIME BILL TABLED BY TORIES

NDP Say Bill, Focused on Incarceration, Will Cost Provinces

A sweeping omnibus crime bill tabled Tuesday that seeks to crack down
on young offenders, drug dealers, sexual predators and Canadians in
foreign prisons is under fire from critics -- who argue it's a waste
of time and money since crime rates are on the wane in Canada.

The bill, dubbed the Safe Streets and Communities Act, comprises nine
individual justice bills that died during the previous parliamentary
session because the then-minority Tory government could not push them through.

Speaking in Brampton, Ont., on Tuesday accompanied by a number of
representatives from victims-rights groups, Justice Minister Rob
Nicholson said the new legislation will include measures to protect
children from sexual offenders by setting mandatory minimum
penalties, will target organized drug crime and crack down on young offenders.

The legislation also will take away the option of house arrest for
those who have been convicted of serious violent and property crimes,
such as sexual assault, human trafficking, arson, break and enter,
child-luring and kidnapping, he said. The government has vowed to
pass the bill within the first 100 sitting days of the new
Parliament, which began Monday.

The opposition has promised to oppose it, citing Statistics Canada
data that suggest crime is actually going down in this country as
well as U.S. studies that conclude locking people up for longer
doesn't necessarily work. With their Commons majority, however, the
Conservatives no longer need the opposition's support.

NDP justice critic Joe Comartin said that the bill focuses on
incarceration rather than crime prevention.

"The evidence generally was overwhelmingly opposed to most of this
legislation and the witnesses who came forward pointed out the faults
and the frailties of the approach that they're taking," Comartin said.

The bill will also heap additional costs on provinces, Comartin said,
as provincial institutions house more prisoners for minor drug crimes.

Comartin said that he was happy to see provisions in the youth crime
bill that give the courts more ability to keep violent offenders
behind bars in pretrial custody.

Interim Liberal leader Bob Rae slammed the legislation, suggesting
the government is taking Canada in an "ideological direction" that
has more to do with its "obsession" with the "symbolism" of
denouncing crime than with actually improving public safety.

Catherine Latimer of the John Howard Society, an organization
dedicated to effective crime responses and the rights of offenders,
also raised a number of concerns about the proposed bill, including
the potential for overcrowding in prisons, the cost to provinces,
territories and taxpayers and the tight time frame the government has
set for passing the legislation.

"We think it will endanger corrections workers and inmates and
compromise rights and not promote good corrections and undermine
principles of justices and have a disproportionately harsh impact on
some of the most vulnerable members of our society," she said.