REGINA – The federal Conservatives are accusing the Mark Carney government of only giving an “illusion” of taking action on crime during a media availability in Regina Wednesday.
Conservative House Leader Andrew Scheer and local MPs Warren Steinley and Michael Kram had welcomed the party’s Justice critic Arpan Khanna and former Justice critic Larry Brock to the city.
Khanna and Brock were in town for their Truth and Realism tour, which Brock said would “provide the truth as to what will work and what will not” in addressing crime.
The tour coincides with two federal Liberal bills becoming law in Canada: the government’s bill C-14, the Bail and Sentencing Reform Act, which came into effect that day on July 15, as well as the federal Protecting Victims Act which takes effect this weekend.
The opposition MPs said they met with local constituents in Regina on the crime issue the previous day. As well, a “Stop the Crime” town hall meeting was planned for Steinley’s Regina-Lewvan riding in the evening — one of a series of town halls the party has held across Canada.
Khanna said the response they have heard locally from people is they “are actually scared. They're scared to go outside to the parks. They're scared to, you know, put their kids in different places.”
“There's this worry and the sense of anxiety that crime is now dominating conversations and for us, despite what the Liberals are saying, despite Sean Fraser and Mark Carney going around trying to get a victory lap on their illusions on crime, they're the ones that caused the problems.”
Khanna pointed to the “11 years of failed Liberal policies” and “catch and release laws” that have “caused this chaos on the streets and have broken our justice system.” He particularly pointed to recent incidents including violent shootings in Toronto, including one nightclub shooting where the accused was out on bail.
“These stories have now become the sad reality of 11 years of Mark Carney and the Liberal government,” said Khanna. “I know they're on a big tour right now, they're going around and wanting a pat on their back, but it's their failures. They are to blame and I can tell you the ground we talk to people, they don't feel safe anymore.”
But the main focus of the ire of the MPs on Wednesday was the latest Liberal legislation. According to the federal government’s news release, bill C-14 includes over 80 clauses of targeted changes to the Criminal Code, the Youth Criminal Justice Act and the National Defence Act. The government said the bill focuses on stricter bail laws to address violent and repeat offending as well as organized crime, and tougher sentencing laws for serious and violent crimes.
But Brock made clear to reporters his belief that the bill and the bail reform measures in it have not made a difference, because “C-14 at its core preserves the principle of restraint.”
“I saw the immediate impact as a practicing Crown attorney in the trenches in bail court every day where violent repeat criminals were being released because Justin Trudeau and the Liberal government said to judges ‘you must release the accused at the earliest opportunity on the least restrictive conditions.’”
Brock said what the Liberals have done with the two bills is “simply scratched the surface. They have not addressed the core issues and until such time as they've addressed, will address those core issues, we are going to have problems in communities right across this country.”
Scheer laid the blame squarely on the federal Liberals for the crime issues seen in the country.
“There's no doubt that it was federal legislation that put in that principle of restraint,” Scheer said. “That was a Liberal law that told judges that the first consideration before community safety, before victims rights, had to be the rights of the criminal, so that was federal legislation that did that. Mark Carney has refused to repeal that. He is keeping that provision in place.”
He also pointed to the other new legislation taking effect this weekend, one that Scheer said “effectively eliminates all mandatory minimums for all but I think two or three crimes. So he has now given judicial discretion on a whole swath of mandatory minimums.”
“Well you don't have a mandatory minimum if a judge is allowed to not impose that that sentence. I mean it's just it's contradictory. It's an oxymoron.”
Scheer said these two pieces of federal legislation are “making the situation worse, and again…. this is an illusion. Mark Carney would love you to believe he’s doing something different. They’re actually using our tax dollars to run ads telling Canadians they’re addressing these problems, but when you actually read the legislation, that’s keeping in place the very Liberal laws that caused this problem in the first place.”
Khanna said his party’s focus had been to “put good thoughtful policies, good practical solutions” so that repeat offenders are “put behind bars.” He pointed to the party having brought almost 20 criminal justice and public safety bills to the floor of the House of Commons in the last session — none of which passed.
“I brought forward the Jail Not Bail bill which focused on locking up these repeat offenders,” Khanna said.
He added that had his bill been implemented, that “one of the shooting criminals that shot up in Toronto wouldn't have been out on bail.”
“So we have on the Conservative side put forward solutions, while the Liberals are playing politics, and you know, driving rhetoric, and that's going to be our focus of the fall when we head back to the Parliament for the fall session.”
