vic toews

By. Tobi Cohen, Postmedia News

 

OTTAWA — After years of cordial relations with the United States on the issue of prison transfers, the Harper government’s recent crackdown on repatriating offenders may be causing a diplomatic rift.

 

Documents obtained by Postmedia News under Access To Information indicate the U.S. Department of State sent a diplomatic note to the Canadian Embassy in Washington last December outlining concerns raised by the U.S. Department of Justice regarding the transfer of offenders.

 

The documents indicate U.S. officials were seeking to meet “face-to-face” with their Canadian counterparts to discuss the matter further.

 

The e-mail exchanges between Public Safety and Foreign Affairs officials talk of internal meetings to “discuss the note and tactics for response” to it. Read more »

By. Janice Tibbetts, Canwest News Service

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews says double-bunking in Canadian prisons "is not a big deal" but critics say his plan to impose more cell sharing contradicts the government's own policy and is bound to breed more penitentiary violence.

 

More than half of Canada's 54 federal prisons recently applied to the Correctional Service of Canada to double bunk, according to a Toronto researcher.

 

The practice requires approval from headquarters because it contradicts a 2001 prison service directive that "single occupancy accommodation is the most desirable and correctionally appropriate method of housing offenders."

 

Mr. Toews, since assuming the public safety portfolio in January, has spoken in favour of double-bunking as a solution to ease prison overcrowding, which is expected to escalate in the coming years as a result of new and pending federal laws to put more people in prison and to keep them there longer. Read more »

By. Paul Rutherford, Winnipeg Sun

Rumours have surfaced the past few years about the future of Manitoba’s senior Conservative MP Vic Toews.

Each time the prime minister shuffles his cabinet, so-called knowledgeable sources claim Toews is out and yet he’s still there, currently minister of public safety. Mostly Toews has performed well but sometimes he gets a little carried away.

This week he’s upset at some of the media coverage of a controversial plea bargain handed to a former Tory MP. What in the name of God got into Toews’ head when he chastised reporters after Rahim Jaffer made a court appearance in Ontario? For the record, Jaffer ended up getting basically nothing for a brush with the law last fall.

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