Crime on the Agenda
They probably could have started off with today’s announcement with regarding the Conservative’s stance on crime, rather than the other day’s one. At least if they wished to focus attention on the one dealing with things which are debatable (house arrest being used liberally is an issue to be limited and could have some merit) rather than something which is being panned by several criminologists.
Regarding the house arrest issue, let’s look at the list of what Harper’s aiming for:
- Serious property crimes, such as robbery, auto theft, breaking and entering, and arson.
- Weapons offences, such as possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose.
- Serious vehicular crimes, such as impaired driving causing bodily harm or death.
- Drug trafficking, kidnapping and trafficking in persons.
The last three points I’d agree with, as house arrest is probably not warranted (barring situational circumstances). But point one (except arson)? Unless your aim is to try and reduce gang crime, which does seem to be a bit of a problem in certain regions in Canada, by increasing penalties on the crimes typically associated with them (and this idea that more punishment = less crime is, in and of itself, rather specious) I don’t see this doing much beyong being able to say “We’re tough on crime.”
Now, with regard to ammending the Youth Justice Act, what the hell? When it’s being shown that this (starting to extend sentences on children and reducing protections for children) is a terrible idea, and you have UN adopting the Convention on the Rights of the Child to specifically address the fact that children need special legal protections because of their immaturity, it’s rather appalling that there would be a proposition to relax these very protections for the purpose of an election talking point. And with quotes like:
I don’t think you should be able to hide behind anonymity just because you’re under 18. ~Ken Boessenkool, Conservative Strategist; on CBC just before 6 pm today.
‘Yes, we believe they’re wrong,’ Harper said. ‘We’re listening to ordinary people, not people who work in ivory towers, but people who actually work on the street and deal with crime on a day-to-day basis.’
It’s disconcerting to the extent with which Harper and his campaign will eschew actual solutions to the problem of crime (and youth crime) by addressing the various socio-economic circumstances driving it, as well as the people most knowledgable of crime in general all to try and ‘connect’ with voters.
New Year
I really should update this more often, but maybe this time it will stick.
So it’s back into the swing of things with a new university season and we already have an election. I’m not expecting much of a change from last year in terms of government, but it will be nice to see how well the Greens perform this year (even though I don’t support them). Considering their recent acquisition of their first MP it will be interesting how Elizabeth May performs in the national leaders’ debates. Oddly enough recent polls seem to have all the parties (except the Bloc) split on how well people figure they will handle the economy, which I’d imagine bodes not so well for the Green Party considering they base their platform and name around environmental stewardship yet only tie with the NDP and Liberals.
Potpourri News Day
Looks like there isn’t going to be an election any time soon in Canada, what with the Liberals (predictably) abstaining. While I understand they want to wait until Stephane Dion shows himself to be a bit more of an astute leader than he currently is and/or something goes horribly wrong with the Conservatives (and to be fair to Harper, he’s rather clever when it comes to politics and I don’t foresee him slipping up in the near future), it still just seems like they’re sacrificing bits and pieces of what the Liberal party stands for (and not at all acting like an Opposition) just to avoid a vote. They might as well not even be there, since the NDP and Bloc are far more visible in actual opposition of the government. The problem with continuing to wait until their situation becomes more tenable is that all the government has to do is continue to issue confidence motion after confidence motion, since, as we’ve already been familiar with Stephane Dion for 10 or so months now, large scale changes in perception aren’t going to happen in just a few months. It could be up to a year before anything substantial shifts and by then the Conservatives would have already managed to push through dozens of pieces of legislation. I guess we’ll see if Harper will try and push his luck and force something through the House that won’t allow the Liberals to simply abstain again.
In other news, it would seem that, a few, businesses are attempting to emulate the guild behaviour of a few MMOs. Now, forgive me for possibly pointing out the obvious, but, wouldn’t your aim (as a business) be to try at all possible moments to [i]lessen[/i] the amount of stress and competitiveness amongst your own employees? Competition between separate business entities is great, because it can spur innovation and the like, but when your own employees begin to compete with each other (and gods forbid they take it to the extreme that higher ’status’ within this system equates to higher salary) then (at least taking experience from actual MMOs here) they become far more focused on their own individual selves and less on the actual company. If there was a choice between doing something that might help the business and doing something else that will benefit your ’stats’, then I’m fairly sure the majority of workers (who already don’t care much for the long grind of work) are going to try and get more for themselves.
And as if there was some entity out there trying to prove that it was a slow news day last year, I present this gem. Because as we all know: an evolutionary theorist we’ve never heard of who makes a report for a satellite TV channel about a prediction -thousands- of years in the future, is entirely newsworthy within the BBC. This saddens me.
~Shaun
Edit: And note to self, as my lovely partner in crime on this blog here pointed out: Check the damn date on the article! Which brings up another question, since said article is currently #3 on most read and #1 on most emailed today (and you bet I made sure I checked the date this time)…What the hell is everyone doing being so concerned about a year old article anyway? We as a society aren’t that behind in keeping up on the news are we?
Security Certificates Revised
Well, it would seem that the government has finally introduced legislation with respect to those security certificates that the Supreme Court unanimously deemed against the charter of rights and freedoms. It was predictable that the conservative government would alter the certificates to try and withstand another Supreme Court challenge rather than simply scrapping them outright. Though what attempting to figure is that if they do indeed allow impartial (and not simply government-favourable advocates) advocates to have access to the information and communicate some of it with their clients then…why even have these secret trials in the first place? It seems to be placing nothing more than an extra, unneeded complexity over the entire judicial systems in these specific trials that are incredibly rare (being issued only 20 times in the last 17 years).
Rather than risk the Supreme Court striking this new legislation down, later on if the government’s plan turns out to not go far enough to protect civil liberties, why not try these suspects that they find so dangerous through the standard judicial system to ensure their trials, status, and repercussions for the government end in a timely manner rather than drag on for years (and possibly decades)?
~Shaun
