SILENCE IS THE ONLY CRIME

Contrary to the politically correct bafflegab coming from too many federal
politicians and the media commentariat in recent days, now is exactly the
time we should be talking about reforming Canada's lax criminal justice system.

Ever since a gun-toting madman murdered four young RCMP constables in cold
blood last week before taking his own life, the cry from our chattering
classes has been relentless.

Now is not the time, we're told, to discuss issues like cracking down on
marijuana grow ops, or scrapping the useless federal gun registry, or
fixing the systemic problems in our justice system that allowed a violent
bully and sex offender like James Roszko to terrorize a small Alberta town
for years.

After initially making some pro-forma comments about the feds being ready
to look at toughening laws against grow ops and giving the police more
resources, Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan, who is also public safety
minister, said it was time to put such issues aside for now and mourn the
dead officers.

Asked for his comments on the Roszko killings in the context of such things
as the Liberals' bid to decriminalize marijuana -- given that police found
a grow op on Roszko's farm -- Conservative Leader Stephen Harper said "we
can't just run out on the basis of a single tragedy and make up a bunch of
laws."

What nonsense -- from both politicians.

That Canadians mourn the death of these officers goes without saying. But
the way to honour them is to do all we can to minimize the risks faced by
both police and civilians in future.

The problem with the Liberals -- what with their love of soft sentencing
and early parole -- is that they don't want to talk seriously about
cracking down on crime at any time.

As for Harper, surely he knows that no one who is serious about justice
reform wants to "make up a bunch of laws on the basis of a single tragedy."
But millions of Canadians are rightly asking how many tragedies it will
take before the feds establish mandatory minimum sentences for the
operators of grow ops, toughen parole laws and scrap the useless gun
registry while transferring all that wasted money into front-line policing.

And since all of these ideas are consistent with Conservative policies, why
shouldn't Harper be raising them, especially now?

It's true we may never know the precise reasons why James Roszko did what
he did. But we do know it wasn't because he feared that our justice system
- -- which he played like a fiddle -- was going to lock him up and throw away
the key. It wasn't because he feared being busted for running a grow op
since most grow op operators never serve any hard time. And it wasn't
because he lived in fear of the gun registry. And if now isn't the time to
raise these issues, when will the right time be?

And another thing ...

Prime Minister Paul Martin says the Conservatives have to figure out what
they stand for and then how to hide it from voters. This from a guy who
can't figure out what he stands for on anything.