Justice or Liberal Election Readiness?

October 26, 2005

In full “pre-election” mode, the Martin Liberals are getting the jump on Santa Claus as they use taxpayers’ money to dole out goodies and dangle sweets before voters’ eyes. Suddenly, the Liberals appear ready to offer some ‘half-measures’ of the tax cuts and policies long advocated by the Conservative Party of Canada. Of course, they’ll claim them as their own.

We’re used to that. But what I will not accept is the opportunistic misuse of the name of a well-respected Member of Parliament who passed away earlier this year. Chuck Cadman was an avid proponent of justice reforms designed to protect the rights of victims NOT convicted criminals. Throughout his years as an MP, he tabled several excellent pieces of legislation that the federal Liberal government callously sloughed off as unnecessarily “tough on crime”.

Now that Mr. Cadman has passed away. Now that Canadians are demanding his bills be passed to honour his memory. Now that a federal election is on the horizon. Now, the Martin Liberals claim they’re willing to enact Mr. Cadman’s legislation.

Yet the legislation the Liberals are attempting to pass off as Mr. Cadman’s is nothing more than watered-down Liberal-style soft-on-crime gruel! That includes a government bill to address auto theft passed this week by Liberal and NDP MPs. The Liberals added phrases and significantly changed words so that the bill does NOT honour Mr. Cadman’s efforts to combat vehicle theft.

If the Liberals truly want to honour Mr. Cadman’s memory, they would table legislation to scrap the use of conditional sentences for violent crimes and drug crimes. That is the kind of legislation that Chuck supported for many years.

Soon after the Liberal legislation, Clause 742.1 of the Criminal Code (conditional sentencing), took effect on September 3, 1996, courts across the country began granting conditional sentences to convicted murderers, rapists, child molesters and drug dealers.

My first attempts to have this legal loophole closed began in March 1998 with a private members’ motion. Since then, I had it written into a bill and have re-introduced it in each Parliament. It is now known as Bill C-257. It sets out a specific list of serious and violent offences for which a conditional sentence would not be allowed.

Canadians are demanding real justice reforms, like Bill C-257 and the type of legislation advocated by the late Chuck Cadman. Instead, the Justice Minister is giving us phony pre-election publicity stunts that exploit and intentionally distort well-intentioned legislation tabled by MPs on behalf of their constituents

BREAKING NEWS: As this column was going to print, Justice Minister Cotler introduced legislation claiming to restrict conditional sentencing.

Just this September, the Minister personally assured me that he would be the one to correct this miscarriage of justice. Yet his bill only adds a ‘presumption’ clause that continues to allow judges to hand down conditional sentences for violent crimes. Now they simply have to write a note explaining why they let killers go free.

In other words, killers and rapists will continue to be eligible to avoid jail and serve their sentence in the comfort of their livingroom!

-30-