conservative
Former Conservative MP Dodges Cocaine, Drunk Driving Charges
Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Tue, 03/09/2010 - 11:35am
By Amber Hildebrandt, CBC News
Drunk driving and drug possession charges were dropped against former Conservative MP Rahim Jaffer in court Tuesday, but he pleaded guilty to a lesser offence of careless driving.
Jaffer, 38, was ordered to pay a $500 fine within a month. He also donated $500 to the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, his lawyer said.
An agreed statement of fact read by Crown lawyer Marie Balogh said that last Sept. 10, an Ontario Provincial Police constable clocked Jaffer driving 93 kilometres an hour in a 50 km/h speed zone in Palgrave, northwest of Toronto.
The village is in the southern Ontario riding of Simcoe-Grey held by his wife, federal Tory cabinet minister Helena Guergis.
Jaffer said he had consumed two beers two hours earlier and was travelling home to Angus, Ont., from Toronto, the statement said. The constable said Jaffer failed his breathalyzer test.
Watchdog to cost out Tory crime agenda
Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Mon, 10/26/2009 - 5:26pm
Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page is launching the first stages of a financial analysis aimed at pinning down the total cost of the Conservative government's tough-on-crime agenda.
The preliminary work is being done in response to a written request by Liberal MP Mark Holland. The MP hopes it will determine the financial implications of three crime bills already passed into law and four others that are still being debated in Parliament.
“The government has supplied Parliament with no costing for these policies, despite the fact that the cost to our correctional system will inevitably be in the hundreds of millions of dollars as a significant influx of new federal inmates will result,” Mr. Holland wrote.
Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan, who is responsible for Correctional Service Canada, said this month that the government is in fact preparing for more inmates. The service's budget for prison infrastructure has doubled since 2006 when the Conservatives took office.
New federal marijuana policy a welcome change
Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Fri, 10/23/2009 - 8:33amIn 2005, the United States Supreme Court struck a blow against the medicinal use of marijuana and against the notion that states can enact and enforce their own laws without being trumped by the federal government. In the Gonzalez v. Raich decision, the High Court used the Constitution’s much-abused “interstate commerce” clause as a basis on which to uphold a federal prosecution of two women who grew and used small amounts of marijuana under a doctor’s care, in compliance with California’s law permitting medicinal use of marijuana.
Crime down, prison boom looms
Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Sat, 10/17/2009 - 11:09amCraig Jones
If the federal government gets its way, Canadians will witness a boom in prison construction coinciding with the longest steady decline in crime rates in Canadian history. That's the consequence of the various pieces of "get tough" legislation recently passed or currently working their way through Parliament.
Consider this: the introduction of mandatory minimum sentences for "serious drug crimes" in the National Anti-Drug Strategy plus the limiting of judicial discretion in regard to credit for time served in pre-trial detention is projected by Statistics Canada to grow the rate of incarceration by as much as 10 per cent.
Ottawa building prisons: more inmates expected from justice changes
Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Sat, 10/17/2009 - 10:47amTwo-for-one credit for pretrial custody ending
By THE CANADIAN PRESS
OTTAWA -- Ottawa has doubled the budget for prison construction and maintenance as it prepares for an expected influx of new inmates.
The Conservative government has introduced proposals to boost the use of mandatory minimum sentences and end house arrests.
It has also moved to eliminate a judge's ability to credit a prisoner with two days served for every one spent in pretrial custody in calculating sentences.
Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan told the Globe and Mail the government is leaning toward renovating existing prisons and building new wings as a short-term approach to managing the increase. He said cabinet will take another two or three years before deciding whether to build large new regional prisons.
Van Loan also said he has seen internal estimates for prison growth, but added those numbers are before cabinet and cannot be disclosed.
Ottawa will expand prisons to suit tough crime laws
Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Fri, 10/16/2009 - 10:07amThe government is leaning toward renovating prisons and building new wings as a short-term solution to anticipated influx of inmates
The Conservative government has doubled the budget for prison construction and maintenance as it prepares federal institutions for an influx of inmates resulting from its suite of new crime laws.
In an interview with The Globe and Mail, Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan revealed the government is leaning toward renovating existing prisons and building new wings as Ottawa's short-term approach to managing the increase.
He said cabinet will take another two or three years before deciding whether there is a need to build large new regional prisons as recommended in a 2007 advisory report - but the government already has some land in mind.
Prisoners of ideology
Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Tue, 10/13/2009 - 12:14pmThe Ottawa Citizen
The federal government's quiet reform of the country's prison system might have gone unnoticed by many Canadians if not for the work of Graham Stewart and Michael Jackson.
Stewart, former head of the John Howard Society of Canada, and Jackson, a law professor at the University of British Columbia, have released an illuminating review of the direction in which the Conservative government is taking the corrections system.
Their critique, A Flawed Compass: A Human Rights Analysis of the Roadmap to Strengthening Public Safety, accuses the government of -- surprise! -- favouring ideology instead of data, and ignoring the human rights of prisoners, when it comes to developing corrections policy.
These are serious concerns that need to be addressed.
CSI: Parliament Hill
Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Tue, 10/13/2009 - 11:40amLet's investigate claims that the crime rate is out of hand
By GREG WESTON
Ordinary folk listening to federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson railing at critics of the latest Conservative ad-ready crime legislation might be excused for thinking the country is being overrun by killers and crooks.
Once again, at the risk of letting facts get in the way of political propaganda, we offer a sample of common misperceptions of crime and punishment in Canada (as reflected in our daily mail), and some interesting statistics supplied by Nicholson's own government.
Claim: Something urgently needs to be done to deal with soaring rates of both violent and property crimes.
Fact: Something always needs to be done to thwart crime, but reality is our streets are safer today than 20 years ago. Violent crime has been generally dropping for years, and was lower in 2007 than at any time in two decades. Ditto for property crimes -- the recent rate is more than 40% below a peak in 1991.
Federal prison overhaul plan dismissed as amateur, alarming
Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Thu, 09/24/2009 - 6:48amBy Janice Tibbetts
OTTAWA — Canada's blueprint for overhauling federal prisons is an amateur and "alarming" document that ignores human rights, gives the false impression that crime is rising, and provides no costs for flawed policies that would flood penitentiaries with more inmates, says a new report.
The study by two veteran prisoner-rights advocates attacks the Harper government for its speedy, wholesale adoption of a 2007 Roadmap to Strengthening Public Safety that made more than 100 recommendations, based largely on the premise that prisoners don't have automatic rights — they earn them.
The government-appointed panel called for an end to "statutory release" after prisoners serve two-thirds of their sentences, in favour of earned parole that is tied to following a corrections plan.
The government has committed to implementing the new vision set out by the panel.
Protest: BC Conservative MP's in downtown Vancouver for fundraiser
Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Mon, 09/21/2009 - 2:45pm
Conservative Members of Parliament will be in downtown Vancouver for a fund-raiser, on Monday, September 21, from 5:00pm - 7:00pm.
Come down and let the Conservatives know that C-15 is a terrible policy that the people of Vancouver do not support!
Monday, September 21
5:00pm - 7:00pm
Relish Restaurant
888 Nelson Street
Vancouver, BC
Map Below:
Free Marc Emery
