IT COULD GET WORSE

Campaign Against Crime Bill Goes Viral

As Occupiers across North America were ripped from their tents,
protesting students were maced on their own campuses, and police
flexed their brass brutality, an equally insidious and serious news
story was, until last week, flying under the media's radar.

The Conservative Government's omnibus crime Bill C-10, ironically
named "The Safe Streets and Communities Act," is currently being
rushed through Parliament. To be frank, this bill is a huge fucking
deal, with serious fiscal and social implications for our penal law system.

If you dig liberty and justice in this country, you need to start
paying attention. Now.

It's worth noting that this piece of ill-considered legislation has
the Canadian Bar Association-representing over 37,000 law
practitioners across the country-urging MPs to vote it down. The
lawyers aren't alone. Noted criminologists, policymakers, and even
Republicans from Texas are taking issue.

Nope, that last part wasn't a typo: even Republicans from the United
State's toughest crime-fighting jurisdiction believe this bill is a
bad idea. That should tell you something.

The "tough on crime" provisions in the omnibus bill-which blankets
law over young offenders, child sex offenders, drug crime and
immigrant law-actually go against years of research on crime
reduction and prevention, and will inevitably divert funding away
from rehabilitation and community-based healing initiatives.

Also worth noting is that, under this bill, 80 per cent of university
students could be considered criminals for recreational drug use,
according to the Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy. Up to 20 per
cent of us would be liable to a mandatory two-year minimum sentence
in a federal penitentiary for simply passing around drugs at a party.

One could go on and on about how backwards and heavy-handed this bill
is, and how it will disproportionately affect youth and at-risk
groups, but an onslaught of published articles have recently been
doing just that.

Specifically, "10 Reasons to Oppose Bill C-10," written by the
Canadian Bar Association and published in The Vancouver Sun and
Toronto Star last week has been especially resonating with Canadians
as it straightforwardly breaks down the situation.

Closer to home, indie media darlings The Duty Myth, alongside the
Forget the Box collective have started their own viral campaign,
called "It Could Get Worse... Don't Let It."

Modeled after Dan Savage's "It Gets Better" project that was created
to support LGBT youth, the pair hopes Canadians start making and
sharing videos and spreading awareness about the real implications of
the policy.

With a healthy sense of urgency about the gravity of this issue-as
C-10 could be going through a first reading as early as Thursday-the
duo said they had to mobilize quickly to "cut through constitutional
talk and legalese, to make this issue real for people."

"It's getting ploughed over by other news," said Jordan Arseneault, a
founding member of It Could Get Worse.

"This is Old-Testament, fire-and-brimstone justice they're calling
for, but it's been swallowed. Protesting has occupied the news agenda
over the last few weeks, [...] and we hadn't seen anything street,
anything pedestrian about [the bill] to make people actually realize
how serious this is."

Spending the weekend filming 'omnibusters' of all stripes speaking up
against the Bill-including one of the "McGill Four," NDP MP Laurin
Liu and Montreal director and Mirror film critic Mark Slutsky-the
team hopes that generating interest will make a difference.

The Conservatives in the House, meanwhile, have been riding this bill
through fear-mongering without fact-checking-wringing their hands and
framing the debate around "rapists who prey on children," and
"individuals who grow drugs and sell them to children and sell them
near schoolyards."

Any MP demanding, you know, evidence of this hyperbole or testimony
of experts is written off as "soft on crime" and in cahoots with
child molesters. If you're a masochist, or otherwise interested in
witnessing this exercise in futility, the entire, infuriating MP
play-by-play can be found at openparliament.ca.

"But even though there's a Conservative majority, MPs are still
responsive to their constituents," argued Jason McLean, of FTB.
"Harper removed the Internet [and electronic surveillance] provisions
from this bill because of the public backlash, so if we can generate
outrage for the entire bill, there's a chance we might be able to stop it."

Launching on Monday, It Could Get Worse hopes their videos will
connect with people, get posted and re-posted, and inspire folks to
mobilize or make their own.

If the bill continues its course of wild unpopularity, the
Conservatives will have no choice but to slow the heck down on this
one, argue the omnibusters.

"Call your MPs, talk to their secretaries, email them and sign
petitions. If you're a student from another province where there is a
strong Conservative base, call your parents, send them the videos,
call your auntie, your grandma," encouraged Arseneault.

"They were probably rad at some point too, long before their mini van
and mortgage, and they might sympathize that our generation could be
criminalize for something as minor as pot use. [...] Occupy your
parents and your MPs. Tell them to get with it."

Plans are in the works for a cross-Canadian day of action on Thursday
thanks to the efforts of the folks of leadnow.ca . To see the
omnibuster videos, post your own, or learn more, head to itcouldgetworse.com .