Federal Safe Streets Act is “fear-mongering and invidious exploitation of communal differences,”

By Ray Rivers

BURLINGTON, ON.  May 17, 2013.  Justice M. Green put it very well when he said, of the federal governments Safe Streets Act that it represented “…an ideology of unabashed Puritanism marketed through fear-mongering and invidious exploitation of communal differences.”

 Justice Green was writing about one of the Harper government’s signature legislative pieces, (Globe and Mail – May 2, 2013).  Indeed, if puritanism was the driving passion, then why not just bring back the pillory stocks, the dunking stool and the whipping post. 17th century puritans used to nail their prisoners’ ears to the stocks – so they would have to face their victims.  And, the multitude of crimes in those days included treason, sedition, arson, blasphemy, witchcraft, perjury, wife-beating, cheating, forgery, coin clipping, dice cogging, slandering, conjuring, fortune-telling, and drunkenness.  

Putting people in pillory stocks was a common practice in the 1800’s. We have progressed since then; haven’t we?

It took four centuries to narrow down the list of crimes and, more recently, two generations of socially progressive efforts, to whittle down the number of criminals in Canadian prisons.  And the reality is that crimes, criminals and costs have further fallen over the last two decades.  So Mr. Harper’s new law – Bill C-10, ‘The Safe Streets and Communities Act’ can only turn the clock back. 

 This legislation has the ultimate purpose of expanding the prison population and increasing the number of costly prisons required. Why?  A good question.  Since, ironically, the changes being instituted are happening while crime rates are falling and streets are generally safer in Canada.  It is also ironic that the very government which claims to be promoting safer streets is the same one which shut down the long gun registry and destroyed almost all of its weapons records.  It is also the government which has made our country more of a potential target for international terrorism through it’s unbalanced foreign policies. 

 If US-style laws and US prison systems are the models in Mr. Harper’s mind, then privatized for-profit prisons cannot be far behind.  And if profit-oriented US prison providers, like ‘GEO’, are to be engaged, we should expect that higher US-style crime rates will also follow.  The US, with the highest incarceration rates in the world is a poor model for us to emulate, by any reasonable person’s assessment.  

 These American for-profit organizations tend to feed on the underprivileged and the poor, while making greater profit from the increasing number of inmates facing longer sentences.  Looking objectively at the prison system in Canada, it is hard to miss the imbalance which already exists – how certain minorities are over-represented.  For example, less than 13% of Saskatchewan residents are aboriginal and yet aboriginals make up over 80% of the prison inmates in that province.   This is something the so-called ‘Safe Streets and Communities Act’ will do absolutely nothing to improve – it will in fact exacerbate the problem.

 ‘The Safe Streets and Communities Act’ will be the topic of a Town Hall Meeting I am moderating at McMaster Innovation Park (175 Longwood Rd. S.) in Hamilton, 7 PM, May 22.  The event is free and open to the public; it would be nice to see you there.

Ray Rivers

Ray Rivers writes weekly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat after which he decided to write and has become a  political animator. Rivers was a candidate for provincial office in Burlington where he ran against Cam Jackson.