Thanks to Frank from CannabisFacts.ca for posting all of these Senate Testimonies to Youtube!
Here you will be testimony by academics, activists lawyers, and even a police officer who all oppose C-15. You will also find testimony by the one group that supports it; the RCMP.
On Wednesday, December 2, 2009 CSSDP chapters across Canada are going to be demonstrating against the introduction of mandatory minimum sentences, sending the message that young Canadians need education not condemnation. Mandatory incarceration will not help young Canadians!
In Ottawa young Canadians will be handcuffed on Parliament Hill to represent the negative impacts on those caught up by this bill. We will be distributing handouts and engaging with folks on the hill and in the streets to get people to speak out against Bill C-15. We want you to do the same in your community!
By. Dr. Neil Boyd, Simon Fraser University Criminologist
Let’s assume that mandatory minimum sentences for the distribution of illegal drugs represent good social policy, sending a message to would be participants in the commercial trade. One could then argue that mandatory minimum terms of imprisonment tell drug dealers that their activities will have some new consequences, consequences that will serve to curtail their involvement in the business, particularly if they use weapons, or engage in any form of intimidation. Read more »
A federal bill that would impose mandatory jail time for serious drug crimes would increase the workload of the parole system, and the government intends to inject more than $100 million over five years to ease the burden, according to the commissioner of the Correctional Service of Canada.
Commissioner Don Head said at a Senate committee hearing Thursday that if the bill is passed, CSC will receive an additional $116.5 million over the next five years to support an expected increase in cases for the National Parole Board.
The federal Department of Justice boasts Canada’s biggest concentration of legal brainpower. Of its roughly 4,300 employees, about half are lawyers, and its policy branch alone employs about 200 bureaucrats. Not surprisingly, the department has a long history of producing sophisticated policy papers and commissioning probing research on crime and punishment. So as the Conservative government continues this fall to roll out its long series of tough-on-crime initiatives built around mandatory minimum penalties for a raft of offences—from gun crime to big-time fraud—it would be reasonable to expect a thick stack of Justice studies explaining why dictating longer prison terms is the way to go.
Minister of Justice Rob Nicholson claimed in the National Post Thursday that his Conservative government's mandatory minimum sentencing bills would make Canada safer. The same day the most comprehensive analysis of United States sentencing and arrest rates for drugs, which are among the highest in the world, was released. Its conclusion: that these harsh sentences have failed to decrease drug use or associated crime; often they have increased it.
“It's absolutely clear from international evidence that harsh laws do not decrease drug use or associated crime” said Jacob Hunter, Beyond Prohibition Foundation Policy Director, “The Minister of Justice has either consulted no evidence or he is intentionally misleading Canadians”
CAMH - Mandatory minimum sentences for drug-related offences are an expensive and ineffective approach to substance use problems in Canada. That's the message being delivered today by an addictions professional at Canada's largest mental health and addictions treatment and research hospital to a Senate Committee on Bill C-15 - legislation that would create mandatory minimum sentences for certain drug-related offences.
Wayne Skinner
, deputy clinical director of the Addictions Program at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), has worked in substance abuse for more than three decades. He appears at the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs today alongside
Dr. Gabor Mate
, a physician and author with extensive experience in addictions.
Read more »
Look up in the sky? Is it a bird? A plane? No, it’s a caped Conservative cruising across the country to keep us all safe from the hordes of criminals and their partners, the cowardly judges and lawyers.
We join our heroes at their headquarters in Ottawa where they are planning their counter offensive. Public Safety Captain Peter Van Loan has the power to make his judges impose mandatory minimum sentences for financial crimes, drug trafficking and to make sure they spend time behind bars, not at home. Read more »
OTTAWA -- When members of the Harper government say his party is soft on crime, Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe says his political opponents know very well how far that is from reality.
Justice Minister Rob Nicholson has made a habit of suggesting the Bloc and other opposition parties have only suddenly taken an interest in fighting crime, every time they raise the issue in the house.
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Thanks to Frank from CannabisFacts.ca for posting all of these Senate Testimonies to Youtube!
On Wednesday, December 2, 2009 CSSDP chapters across Canada are going to be demonstrating against the introduction of mandatory minimum sentences, sending the message that young Canadians need education not condemnation. Mandatory incarceration will not help young Canadians!
By. Dr. Neil Boyd, Simon Fraser University Criminologist
A federal bill that would impose mandatory jail time for serious drug crimes would increase the workload of the parole system, and the government intends to inject more than $100 million over five years to ease the burden, according to the commissioner of the Correctional Service of Canada.
The Senate Committee is studying Bill C-15 (mandatory prison sentences for low level cannabis offenses i.e. growing 5 plants).
by 
Minister of Justice Rob Nicholson claimed in the National Post Thursday that his Conservative government's mandatory minimum sentencing bills would make Canada safer. The same day the most comprehensive analysis of United States sentencing and arrest rates for drugs, which are among the highest in the world, was released. Its conclusion: that these harsh sentences have failed to decrease drug use or associated crime; often they have increased it.
CAMH 
By Marshall Jones
