Some years ago, I gave up watching CBC News because of its absurd, left-wing, godless bias. When Trudeau came to power and took the Liberal Party of Canada from centre-left to extreme left, the CBC gleefully followed along. I watched for other networks- CTV, Global, City, to counter the extreme tilt to port, but it didn't happen.
Then Trudeau announced a $600mn fund to support Canadian media outlets, probably a good thing in the digital age, but nevertheless, leaving the Liberals open to criticism about influencing the reporting since the Liberals set up the board that chooses who gets to take part of the $600mn fund (slush fund?).
Lets take a look at today's story as an example of the bias even on Global.
Poilievre unveils ‘three strikes and you’re out’ crime plan. Will it work?
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is pledging the “biggest crackdown on crime in Canadian history” by targeting three-time serious offenders with maximum life imprisonment.
The Conservative Party of Canada unveiled its crime plan Wednesday, proposing to pass what it calls a “Three-Strikes-and-You’re-Out” law.
Under this policy, anyone convicted of three serious offences will become ineligible for bail, probation, parole or house arrest, Poilievre said at a campaign stop in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., on Wednesday.
These three-time serious criminals will serve a minimum prison term of 10 years and up to a maximum life sentence, he said.
Poilievre added that the proposed law would also designate such perpetrators as “dangerous offenders,” a legal classification that means an offender cannot be released until they can demonstrate they are no longer a danger to society.
“We need a change. A lost Liberal decade of soft-on-crime, hug-a-thug policies has made life more dangerous,” he told reporters.
“Under my watch, the only way for repeat offenders to obtain their freedom will be through spotless behaviour and clean drug tests during a lengthy minimum prison sentence with earned release dependent on making real progress in improving their lives, such as learning a trade or upgrading their education.”
Police-reported crime in Canada has gone up in recent years.
The most recent crime data from Statistics Canada showed that the volume and severity of police-reported crime rose by two per cent in 2023 – the third successive annual increase.
While 2% may not seem like a significant increase, remember the hug-a-thug attitude by police, prosecutors, and judges has probably kept those numbers down significantly, not because the crimes are not being committed, but they are just not being prosecuted. How much enthusiasm do police have to catch car thieves when they will be back out on the street within a couple hours?
A total of 5,843 incidents per 100,000 population were reported to police in 2023, StatCan said.
What is a dangerous offender?
The Conservative proposal broadens out the current criteria for the “dangerous offender” designation in Canada.
One point I need to make about dangerous offenders is that rapists and child sexual abusers are dangerous offenders. The traumatic effects of rape on young women and child sexual abuse on children of any age are never talked about in public and are not dealt with very well at all in Canada. In ten years of Trudeau, not one single act of legislation, not one direction to the Justice System to clamp down of child abusers occurred.
In those ten years, there were roughly 76 million children in Canada. If half were girls and if 20% of those girls suffered from some traumatic form of sexual abuse (and that is a conservative estimate, many estimates are 1 in 4 or even 1 in three); then the number of sexually abuse children on Trudeau's watch would be about 7 million 6 hundred thousand. But Trudeau's only concern was for the few hundred transgenders, and the media bought completely into that.
Under the Criminal Code, a person is considered a dangerous offender if the offence for which they have been convicted is a “serious personal injury offence,” showing a pattern of “repetitive behaviour” or “persistent aggressive behaviour.”
Jennifer Quaid, a professor of civil law at the University of Ottawa, said the Conservative plan raises “a whole host of constitutional and legal problems.”
When it comes to mandatory minimums and the dangerous offender designation, “there are constitutional constraints on what Parliament can do,” Quaid said in an interview with Global News.
“The idea of designating someone a dangerous offender, that’s an extremely rigorous process because what you do is if you designate someone like that, it takes a lot of evidence,” she said.
Quaid also said that putting in mandatory minimums can face legal challenges, and limits the judge’s ability to determine what the appropriate sentence is.
This is probably the point of it all. Judges' abilities seem to be incapable of protecting society while it strongly protects the violent criminal's rights. That has to change!
She said a “very significant social change in Canadian society” would be needed to bring about constitutional change and “there’s a level of tolerance for the extent to which we’re going to inflict really serious punishments in this country.”
We are used to very significant social changes, the past ten and the past twenty years have resulted in some abhorrent changes in Canadian society, few of which are for the better.
“It’s not impossible. Society has changed, but I just think that in the current framework here, there are limits as to how far you can reasonably interpret and apply the constitution,” Quaid said.
“And I suspect that some of what’s being contemplated is it makes good sound bites, but it doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell.”
Here we go again. That last sentence would never appear in an article on Mark Carney. Therein is the hopeless bias of the media, in this case Global News. But it is typical of most Canadian "News" propaganda outlets.
Earlier in the campaign, Poilievre promised a law that would ensure life sentences for people convicted of five or more counts of human trafficking, importing or exporting 10 or more illegal firearms, or trafficking fentanyl. He also said repeat offenders would be ineligible for bail.
Some experts have said those measures are unconstitutional and would very likely be struck down by the courts — which is what happened with crime measures passed by the former Conservative government under prime minister Stephen Harper.
Asked Wednesday whether he would invoke the notwithstanding clause to enforce the proposals if constitutional challenges emerge, Poilievre argued that his proposals are constitutional.
“We know that what I am proposing today is not only constitutional, but it is necessary,” Poilievre said in French.
“In order to protect constitutional rights, people who obey the law, we need to put criminals in jail, so my proposals are respectful of the constitution and are necessary to protect the constitutional rights of all Canadians.”
The notwithstanding clause allows governments to circumvent certain constitutional rights, and effectively invoke a piece of legislation notwithstanding the provisions of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that a bill might be infringing on.
In 2022, a Liberal government bill ended mandatory minimum sentences for all drug convictions and for some firearms and tobacco-related offences. The changes reversed “tough on crime” measures passed under Harper.
That bill came after Canadian courts pushed back against mandatory minimum sentences. In a 2016 decision, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down a number of mandatory minimum penalties in the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.
The Liberals and New Democrats have yet to release their plan to tackle crime in this federal election campaign.
Right! Because they don't have a plan.
Speaking to reporters in Calgary Wednesday, Liberal Leader Mark Carney said “the full force of the law should be applied and appropriately severe punishment put in place” for serious or habitual crimes.
“I don’t jump to a baseball rule of three strikes and you’re out for a period of time,” Carney said, adding that the party will have more to say on its crime plan.
— with files from The Canadian Press
No comments:
Post a Comment