conservative

Richard Lee's mother hits the California campaign trail

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Tue, 06/29/2010 - 8:19am
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By Josh Richman, Oakland Tribune
 
Richard Lee sank $1.4 million of his Oaksterdam business empire's money into putting a marijuana legalization measure on November's ballot, but it wasn't until this week that he rolled out his secret weapon: his 80-year-old, conservative Republican mom from Texas.
 
Ann Lee arrived in the Bay Area early this week and will remain until Tuesday. At midweek, she was fielding media calls between a video shoot at the Tax Cannabis 2010 campaign headquarters in Oakland and an event at a drug and alcohol recovery center in Concord.
 
"Whatever I can do to help," she said. "I really don't have words to tell you about how excited I am to be doing this." Read more »

PhD Student Analyzes Cost of Conservative "punishment" agenda and writes to Taxpayer Federation

Submitted by Kirk Tousaw on Tue, 06/01/2010 - 4:54pm
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Great blog post at "Tracking the Politics of 'Crime' and Punishment in Canada" a site I just learned of.  And it is a site well worth visiting.  I put it into my Google Reader immediately.
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Dear Kevin Gaudet (federal.director@taxpayer.com),
My name is Justin Piché and I am a PhD Candidate in Sociology at Carleton University. My current research examines the scope and factors contributing to prison construction in Canada at this time. Findings of relevance to your group, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, are those that pertain to the costs of building and operating these new facilities. Read more »

Conservatives’ Emery Extradition Shocks the Conscience of the Nation

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Wed, 05/12/2010 - 11:22pm
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By. Paul McKeever
 
Canada’s Justice Minister, Conservative MP Rob Nicholson (member for the riding of Niagara Falls) today decided to surrender Canadian citizen Marc Emery for extradition to the United States. Arrested on Canadian soil in 2005, and on bail since then, Emery is wanted by America for having sold cannabis seeds to Americans and others around the world via Canada post between 1998 and 2005.
 
Although selling cannabis seeds is technically illegal in Canada, Canadian authorities have rarely ever charged any of the numerous seed sellers doing business in Canada, in broad daylight. And the few that have been charged – including Emery – have received only small fines (in the $200 range) or community service as a sentence. Nicholson’s surrender of Emery was unconditional, and – though he was authorized by Canada’s Extradition Act to seek assurances that Emery would not be prosecuted except for the less serious offenses to which he has already agreed to plead guilty – Nicholson shockingly chose not to do so. Read more »

The irony of the Prince of Pot

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Wed, 05/12/2010 - 11:15pm
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By MINDELLE JACOBS, QMI Agency
Supporters of Marc Emery may be outraged that the so-called Prince of Pot faces imminent extradition to the U.S., but you’ve got to wonder if Emery isn’t secretly pleased.
 
The Vancouver-based pro-marijuana activist deliberately poked Uncle Sam in the eye by selling marijuana seeds over the Internet — practically daring the U.S. authorities to go after him.
 
They did and Emery could be behind bars in the U.S. within days, now that Justice Minister Rob Nicholson has given the green light for his extradition.
 
“I’m proud of what I’ve done and I have no regrets,” Emery told reporters Monday before surrendering to sheriffs in Vancouver.
 
This doesn’t sound like a man who’s particularly unhappy about the way things turned out. Emery’s been yearning to be a martyr for the cause for years and it looks like he’ll finally get his wish. Read more »

Conservative Crime Bills to Cost up to $10 Billion - Parliament Budget Watchdog

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Tue, 04/27/2010 - 7:07pm
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By Kathryn May, Ottawa Citizen
 
It appears Parliament saddled taxpayers with a bill worth billions of dollars when it passed a key piece of the Conservatives' law-and-order agenda with no firm handle on its financial impact.
 
Next week, Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page is expected to release a report on the first major costing of the truth in sentencing legislation, one of seven tough-on-crime bills. By all accounts, the impact is said to be in the billions — a far cry from the $89 million earmarked in the budget this year and next to cover increased costs, such as building or expanding prisons.
 
Some estimate the cost could hit $8 billion to $10 billion by 2015. "This is the first time this kind of costing has been done," said Craig Jones, executive director of the John Howard Society. "The government is asking Parliament to cut a blank cheque on the basis of no research on the cost implications and they are going to be horrendous." Read more »

Former Conservative MP Dodges Cocaine, Drunk Driving Charges

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Tue, 03/09/2010 - 12:35pm
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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.

Read more »

Watchdog to cost out Tory crime agenda

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Mon, 10/26/2009 - 6:26pm
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Liberals request financial analysis, hoping to determine implications of crime bills

 

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.

Read more »

New federal marijuana policy a welcome change

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Fri, 10/23/2009 - 9:33am
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by Bob Barr, former US Senator

In 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.

Read more »

Crime down, prison boom looms

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Sat, 10/17/2009 - 12:09pm
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Craig 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. Read more »

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