Showdown over Tories' Crime Bill Dissolves

It seems that the tough on crime theme is one that even the NDP and even moreso the Liberals are unwilling to confront. Most of the bills in the Omnibus Crime Bill have already been approved. However, the Conservatives are learning for the US to tack on stuff to bills. In this case it is the bill on repeat offenders. This had not been considered by parliament although it had been in committee. No doubt there are some issues there that the opposition would like to amend but it probably will not get the chance. To my mind none of bills merit passage and will just increase the cost to taxpayers of warehousing prisoners. I am disgusted that the NDP in particular seems unwilling to try at least to present and justify a less punitive policy even if they should fail. This is probably part of the Third Way of adopting right wing policies in order to gain power.


Showdown over Tories' crime bill dissolves as opposition backs most measures
CAMPBELL CLARK

From Friday's Globe and Mail

October 19, 2007 at 5:18 AM EDT

OTTAWA — The showdown over the Conservatives' much-ballyhooed omnibus crime bill fizzled into a debate over technicalities yesterday as the government introduced a bill that opposition parties largely support.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's election ultimatum over the crime bill, the second in a parliamentary session that is only three days old, will not lead to any quick confrontation with the opposition.

And it appears unlikely that the crime bill will trigger an election even when it comes to a final vote - possibly months from now - because almost all of its provisions already had enough opposition support to pass.

Last night, the government passed its first confidence-vote test on its Throne Speech when a Bloc Québécois amendment was defeated by all three other parties. And Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion's decision to have his MPs abstain on the final vote on the speech means that also will not defeat the government.
The omnibus crime bill introduced by Justice Minister Rob Nicholson bundled together five bills that died when Prime Minister Stephen Harper prorogued Parliament in September.

But four of the revived bills included all of the compromises made with the opposition in the previous session. And on the fifth, which would toughen provisions for dangerous offenders, the opposition parties said they will push for what they called only minor amendments.

Mr. Harper had insisted that any change would force an election, but the crime bill will first have to wind its way through a legislative committee before the parties have to decide whether to force a showdown over relatively small points of disagreement.

Mr. Nicholson turned up the rhetoric yesterday.

"If they have a problem with the area on dangerous offenders, and that's the hill they want to die on - standing up for dangerous offenders in this country - that's their decision," he said.

All three opposition parties labelled that as an attempt to persuade voters the Tories are tougher on crime while they slow the passage of their own bills.

"It's a lot of hype," said Liberal justice critic Marlene Jennings. "It's another way of creating a perception in the public that this is a government that cares about crime and is prepared to fight an election on it, even though they know that there won't be any election on this particular bill."

Three of the bills revived in the new omnibus legislation - stricter minimum sentences for gun crimes, raising the age of consent for sex to 16 from 14, and requiring accused gun criminals to demonstrate why they should get bail - were passed in the Commons, but not made into law by the Senate.

A fourth, to toughen measures for impaired driving, had been approved by a committee and was awaiting a final vote in the Commons.

Yesterday, NDP justice critic Joe Comartin offered his party's support for splitting those four parts off and sending them immediately to the Senate - leaving only the dangerous offenders bill to go through a Commons committee over the next few months.

"I think the average citizen of Canada understands that when you've got a bill in the Senate and now is being brought back into the House of Commons to start all over again, they understand that the delay is not coming from the opposition, it's coming from the government," he said.

Mr. Comartin said he still wants changes to some of the dangerous-offenders provisions because he believes they would be struck down as unconstitutional.

Those provisions create a "reverse onus" so that people convicted of a serious violent crime for the third time would have to demonstrate that they do not deserve to be classified as a dangerous offender and imprisoned for life.

Mr. Comartin argued that the same effect could be achieved by other means, by expanding the type of evidence that prosecutors could use to prove a convict is a dangerous offender.

Ms. Jennings said she also has some concerns about those provisions and wants to see an amendment that would require three-time serious-crime offenders to face a dangerous-offender hearing before the courts automatically.