Hello Americanized justice system, it’s nice to see you’ve taken up our government’s offer to come live in Canada. Perhaps you can have your friends Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff start filling out immigration papers for your relatives: relaxed gun laws and private health care.
On June 8, a bill, C-15 (2009), passed its third reading in Canada’s House of Commons with the support of the Conservatives and the Liberals. Now it goes to the Senate, and provided they approve, it’ll be law. The bill imports Mandatory Minimum Sentences (MMS) into Canada’s drug policy – a key strategy of the failed U.S. approach.
Supporters of C-15 love how it sticks MMS to organized crime and to those who traffic drugs using violence or children. Also, setting booby-traps in production houses and operating them near children or in rental properties will get you mandatory jail time. Deal drugs near kids, and you’re behind bars for sure.
Increasing the maximum sentences for crimes like these is a good idea. Organized crime is terrible, what with the gangland killings in Canada’s big cities and the influx of cocaine and weapons from across the border.
But why stake out minimums? We don’t trust judges to be able to tell right from wrong enough to put truly rotten people in jail? We should take away a judge’s ability to weigh mitigating factors such as no prior convictions, wrong place/wrong time or other contextual factors into sentencing?
Now the judge has to give a MMS to a pusher brewing up meth in a lab beside his five-year-old child’s bedroom. Good. And a MMS for a woman growing cannabis from three plants she keeps in her apartment to provide for her chemotherapy-riddled dad. Good...?
Under C-15, the judge has no choice. Forget that, unlike meth, cannabis has a growing body of research showing that it has a litany of desirable medicinal properties. Sure, just like your daily dose of caffeine, smoking weed can foster dependency. But it isn’t even addictive like cigarettes, alcohol and prescription pills.
MMS represents sloppy, cowardly and ideological policy-making at its most irresponsible, and cannabis has no place being lumped together with cocaine, meth and heroin in the good fight against degenerative drug use.
The NDP, Bloc and many Liberals have spoken out on the ignorance of MMS. The vast majority of those testifying before Parliament’s Justice and Human Rights committee affirmed that MMS is a bad idea. They said that there’s absolutely no evidence that MMS reduces offence rates. They pointed out that the example set in the U.S. is exploding prison populations and soaring enforcement costs. They suggested that throwing small-time pot growers away with coke pushers will strengthen organized crime’s claim on the cannabis trade (B.C.’s largest agricultural crop by GDP share, and one that the courts have affirmed as a right for disease sufferers who need palliative care – also one that Health Canada has demonstrated they can’t adequately supply).
The Conservatives didn’t listen. To them, it’s easier to lock people up than to deal with the problem. They threw language into the bill that pays lip service to treatment and spread the word that they’re “tough on crime.” It’s wedge politics. Support the bill, and you get points from reactionaries – smear anyone who doesn’t vote for the bill as “soft on crime.” If his attack ads are any indication, Harper pays close attention to U.S. politicking and understands that being simplistically juvenile on crime policy is an effective vote-getter.
Of course, Ignatieff is angling for an election and doesn’t want to have to spend precious campaign time explaining the nuances of what real justice looks like. It’s a shame he didn’t kill two birds with one stone by standing up for toughened sentences while opposing MMS. He could have shown Canadians that he’s willing to put principal before the shameless pursuit of power while combating the suggestion that he really does think of himself as an American. By directing his party to vote in favour of importing a U.S.-style War on Drugs, Ignatieff only reinforced the slander that he’s so comfortable with life in the U.S., he’d like to bring the “best” parts of it home to Canada.
hear, hear
One of the best articles I've read on Bill C-15, I'll be sure to pass it on.
One of the biggest things about the parliamentary debate on C-15 is how the Cons refused to submit even one single study that MM's work, instead, they'd pull some sob story outta their.... The Libs are cowards for supporting these draconian measures. What ever happened to the 4 Pillar Approach?
Prohibition causes way more damage than drugs ever could. Cannabis has never killed anyone, ever. ZERO. But Prohibition related crime causes violence everywhere.
Unfortunately, Canadians seem to be completely oblivious to what's happening with this Bill... wonder how they are gonna feel if the bill passes senate and the violence escalates and gets worse?
Legalize it already.
Having no economic, environmental, foreign policy or social plans, the Conservatives are using crime to pander to their myopic, visceral, misinformed and punishment-happy voter base.
Bill C-15, for example, appears designed specifically to increase crime. Mandatory sentences will scare off the mom-'n'-pop pot growers, who represent direct market competition to the gangsters. With the little guys out of the game, the big guys will get more business and profit. This will lead to more violence, which the police and government will use as justification for even more draconian laws, more cops with bigger budgets and more powers, and further suppression of our civil rights and liberties.
The whole thing is a scam designed to make it necessary to hire more cops, build more jails and spend more taxpayers' dollars on a policy that further subsidizes organized crime. The media-addled public is being duped once again.
Russell Barth Federally Licensed Medical Marijuana User Patients Against Ignorance and Discrimination on Cannabis (PAIDOC)www.paidoc.org
This is all a smoke screen.
Now that this bill has already made it this far - to the senate. The US will use the story to say " wait, lets leave Marijuana as it is (on schedule 1) as look, Canada is considering changing their laws...We must have been right in the firstplace"
Bill C-15 is so backward looking, it makes me wonder how these people get into position of influence in the first place. Shame on the liberals, shame on you....
The bill comes up for review in 2 years thanks to an amendment by the libs. Considering this bill will probably not even pass in the fall because of an election, this bill will likely never see any real implementation.
The Liberals will axe this once they're in power during its review in two years. It's dissapointing yes, but this is one dog which won't bark.
Great article. I wish our stupid Government was more insightful towards this issue.
I'll dissent on this. Lawmakers are supposed to make laws, and judges are supposed to follow them, not make them up. Giving judges more guidance is a good thing.
Also, Cody's comment that "They suggested that throwing small-time pot growers away with coke pushers will strengthen organized crime’s claim on the cannabis trade" is kinda quirky. Are we arguing that having a mom-and-pop pot trade is a good thing?
I don't see a problem with throwing criminals in jail. If our laws are punishing people who aren't bad (which Cody seems to suggest the pot grower example he gives isn't) then we need to change our laws. But there's nothing wrong with punishing bad guys.
The "man on the street" has no idea that the Parliamentary debate & vote on Bill C-15 is history.
Our entire MSM system has failed to devote enough coverage to make the public aware of what has happened. If things do not change, the Senate debate will not receive any coverage either.
This is pitiful.
There was no Liberal mandate from the Party or the public to join with the Conservatives to manufacture criminals, ruin lives, & destroy careers for the simple possession & sharing of this completely nonaddictive medicinal herb.
How could this have happened, & why isn't it news ?
I suspect that Ignatieff & Harper have formed some form of twisted coalition without public awareness or authorization & the MSM appears to be complicit in keeping this unholy political mating of the Conservatives & the Liberals a secret. Why ?
I have detected MSM deliberate omission many times in recent months.
MSM Consumers beware, & tell a Senator you care!
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