The B.C. teachers strike is front-page news, but Im obsessing over Ottawa-based ethics and logic.
Last year, two tawdry Conservative Party tactics were revealed. You may recall the Tory in and out advertising scandal over skirting national campaign spending limits in the 2006 election. Four high-ranking Conservatives, including two senators, have been charged under the Elections Act as a result.
Then there were the Conservative Party false byelection phone calls to Liberal MP Irwin Cotlers Quebec riding last fall suggesting the veteran Liberal was retiring and would you please support a potential Tory successor. Cotler has no intention of retiring. The Tories outright lied, but I dont know whats worsethe fibbing or Government House Leader Peter Van Loan arguingwhen he should have been apologizingthat the calls were a free speech issue and should be protected?
So it was a bit richand confusingfor Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro to tell the Toronto Star Feb. 29: The Conservative Party does not place intentionally misleading calls to voters. We simply do not.
He was referring to the so-called robocall scandal that has the Tories on the defensive. But now Im really puzzled. If one type of call that involves lying is OK to them, why arent the Tories using that same argument to defend the robocalls even if they have nothing to do with them?
Im just trying to understand Conservative logic. But as offensive as these two cases are, the Tories worst sins might be a lack of vision and irrational judgment. Yes, Im referring to the omnibus crime bill (Bill C-10s Safe Streets and Communities Act) and mandatory minimum sentencing.
Even an American who authored a similar law in the U.S. in the 1980s is warning against the bill. We just made a colossal mistake and its been almost impossible to fix those mistakes, Eric Sterling told CBC Radios The Current last Thursday. He and two dozen former judges, special agents, police and other criminal justice professionals have signed a letter imploring the Harper government not to follow the same path.
But it was Robert Sampsons logic that floored me when he was also interviewed on The Current. Once Ontarios corrections minister in Mike Harriss government, Sampson was asked by the Harper government in 2007 to draft a review of Canadas Correctional Services. Many of his recommendations are included in Bill C-10.
His argument for mandatory minimum sentencing, which will require billions of dollars to build new prisons to handle the influx of new offenders, hinges on the idea that repeat low-level offenders dont spend enough time in jail to turn their life around.
I would say 80 to 90 per cent in the Ontario [corrections] system are unemployable, said Sampson, who noted most offenders have a Grade 8 level education. They literally have no employable skills. And so to bring them into the justice system and sentence them to six months at home and push them into the public again is not helping them. Guess what? They come back again. Why? Because their best source of income that they know is moving drugs from A to B. They dont have a skill to hold a job. So the system needs to have them long enough to be able to provide them those skills and resources.
From what I read, the more time one spends in prison, the more violent and drug-addled one becomes.
The Tories have it backwards.
Shouldnt we educate and train vulnerable Canadians when theyre young to prevent crime from happening in the first place? (Note that a disproportionately high number of aboriginal people make up Canadas prison population.)
If the Conservatives had a genuine desire to reduce crime, which is on the decline, theyd invest heavily in educating and supporting Canadians long before they resort to a life of crime. Hmmm I dunno, like when theyre pre-school age.
So I have to ask our Prime Minister and Premier Christy Families First Clark, who supports Bill C-10: What is more cost-effective and better for families? An emphasis on expensive incarceration after the fact or funding early childhood and youth education programs to ensure kids get the support and skills they need during their formative years?
Sterling sees it this way: It sounds absurd to me that were going to use mandatory sentences as a device to educate uneducated drug addicts and believe that we can move from an eighth grade to a 12th grade level in a year or two, he told CBC Radio. What we found in the U.S. by overcrowding our prisons we had to spend so much on the security side that the educational and rehabilitative functions got zeroed out.
While the Tories lose their minds, I fear Im losing my country.
Twitter: @HughesFiona
