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Introduction
Safe streets have been a defining characteristic of the Canadian way of life and Canadians are rightly proud of that tradition of community safety and security. The federal government must act decisively to ensure that all Canadians – particularly the most vulnerable members of society – can live in safe, healthy communities.
Security also means knowing that our borders are secure and that our federal government is actively protecting us against terrorism, smuggling, and organized crime.
The Liberal record on safety and security has been weak. The homicide rate is up, gun violence is a growing menace, drug cultivation offences have doubled in the last decade, and the government has demonstrated an inability to deport criminals out of Canada – and keep them out.
A Conservative government will protect Canadians, ensure effective and appropriate justice is administered to criminals, and secure our country’s borders.
Serious crime must mean serious time
A Conservative government will protect our communities from crime by insisting on tougher sentences for serious and repeat crime and by tightening parole. We will ensure truth in sentencing and put an end to the Liberal revolving door justice system. The drug, gang, and gun-related crimes plaguing our communities must be met by clear mandatory minimum prison sentences and an end to sentences being served at home. Parole must be a privilege to be earned, not a right to be demanded.
The plan
A Conservative government will:
- Introduce mandatory minimum prison sentences for designated drug trafficking offences, weapons offences, crimes committed while on parole, and repeat offenders to ensure that serious crime results in real punishment.
- End conditional sentences (“house arrest”) for serious crimes, including designated violent and sexual offences, weapons offences, major drug offences, crimes committed against children, and impaired driving causing death or serious injury.
- Create presumption-of-dangerous-offender designation for anyone convicted and sentenced to federal custody for three violent or sexual offences.
- Repeal section 745.6 of the Criminal Code – the so-called “Faint Hope Clause” – that allows a criminal serving a life sentence to apply for early parole.
- Create mandatory consecutive sentences (instead of concurrent sentences, as is usually the case) for select multiple violent or sexual offences.
- Replace statutory release (the law entitling a prisoner to parole after serving two-thirds of his sentence) with earned parole.
- Toughen parole provisions once you have been convicted of committing a crime while on parole, and eliminate parole for life after the third such conviction.
- Prevent courts from giving extra “credit” for pre-trial custody for persons denied bail because of their past criminal record or for violating bail.
- Create a reverse onus for bail hearings for anybody charged with an indictable firearms offence.
- Work for a constitutional amendment to forbid prisoners in federal institutions from voting in elections.
- Review the operations of Correctional Service Canada with a view to enhancing public safety.
- Ensure federal corrections officers have the tools and training they require to do their job as peace officers.
- Adopt, in collaboration with the provinces, a national strategy to fight organized crime, including the creation of a joint national task force on security.
- Increase the financial resources allocated to the RCMP to help them combat organized crime in all regions of the country.
More police on the streets
Canada needs more front-line law enforcement. According to Department of Public Safety documents, there is currently a shortage of 1,059 RCMP officers in federal, provincial, and municipal policing roles. In addition, many provincial and municipal police forces are under-funded and overstretched. It is time to reinvest in front-line law enforcement in Canada.
The plan
A Conservative government will:
- Reinvest savings from cancellation of the ineffective long-gun registry program into hiring more front-line enforcement personnel, including filling 1,000 RCMP positions.
- Negotiate with the provinces to create a new cost-shared program jointly with provincial and municipal governments, to put at least 2,500 more police on the beat in our cities and communities.
- Invest $100 million per year of new federal money on criminal justice priorities, including working with the provinces and municipalities to hire more police, as well as victim assistance and youth crime prevention programs.
Invest in effective gun control, not phoney measures
When the Liberals first introduced Bill C-68, the federal long gun registry, they said it would cost around $2 million. Today, at a cost of almost $2 billion – 1,000 times more than promised – the registry is incomplete, riddled with errors, and according to the former Toronto Chief of Police, “ineffective in helping catch criminals.”
Canadians demand more than simple cosmetic reforms to failed programs. The wasteful long gun registry must end and the money must be redirected to genuine law enforcement priorities. Canadians want to see effective gun control that stops crime in our streets, not phoney reforms.
The plan
A Conservative government will:
- Repeal the wasteful long-gun registry legislation (Bill C-68).
- Reinvest savings from scrapping C-68 into hiring front-line law enforcement officers and assisting victims of crime.
- Maintain the existing handgun registry and bans on all currently prohibited weapons.
- Work with the provinces on effective gun control programs designed to keep guns out of the hands of criminals while respecting the rights of law-abiding Canadians to own and use firearms responsibly. Measures will include:
- Mandatory minimum prison sentences with restricted parole eligibility for the criminal use of firearms, trafficking or possession of stolen firearms, or illegal possession contrary to a bail, parole, or firearms prohibition order.
- Strict monitoring, including tracking place of residence, of high-risk individuals prohibited from owning firearms.
- Tighter restrictions on individuals on bail or parole for firearms offences, including the use of electronic monitoring.
- Cracking down on gun smuggling.
- Safe storage laws.
- Firearms safety training.
- A certification system requiring a background check and safety training for all those wishing to acquire and use firearms legally.
- Eliminating exceptions to firearms prohibition orders following criminal conviction.
Get tough with sex offenders
Families should be able to raise their children without fear of sexual predators in our communities. Women should be able to live without fear in any Canadian city. But under Liberal governments, we have seen slap-on-the-wrist sentences for sex offenders, while Canada has become a haven for internet child pornography, and the Liberals have refused to raise the age of consent to prevent adults from exploiting young teens.
The plan
A Conservative government will:
- Require the registration of all convicted sex offenders and dangerous offenders. The registry will include mandatory DNA sampling of all those convicted or currently in custody on such offences.
- Rename the Age of Consent to the Age of Protection and raise the age from 14 to 16 years of age to stop adults from sexually exploiting vulnerable young people.
- Adopt a zero tolerance policy for child pornography, eliminating the so-called “legitimate purpose” defence.
- Prohibit conditional sentences for sex offences committed against children. Anyone who commits these crimes should serve prison time.
- Amend s. 810.2 of the Criminal Code (the provisions that recently allowed Karla Homolka to avoid post-sentencing supervision) to permit the participation of the prosecutors involved in the original trial, as well as the victims of the crime and their families, at the hearing. Allow judges to impose residency restrictions on offenders, and extend the term of the order.
Youth at risk
Too many crime-related problems begin when our youth are not equipped with the necessary life skills to make the right choices, to say “no” to drugs, gangs, and violence. We need to invest in positive opportunities for young people to say “yes” to.
The plan
A Conservative government will:
- Work with provinces, municipalities, police, and community leaders in areas threatened by gun and gang violence to support programs which reach out to young people. We must help them recognize the dangers of violence in their schools and community, so that they reject gang and gun violence.
- Support results-oriented, community-based initiatives for addictions treatment, training, and rehabilitation of those in trouble with the law.
- Direct $50 million in funding into community-based, educational, sporting, cultural, and vocational opportunities for young people at risk.
Strengthen the Youth Criminal Justice Act
A Conservative government will hold young lawbreakers accountable to their victims and the community. The youth criminal justice system must provide effective punishment for adolescents who commit serious crimes, instil a sense of responsibility in young offenders for their behaviour, and give young people better opportunities for rehabilitation.
The plan
A Conservative government will:
- Ensure that anyone 14 years or older who is charged with serious violent or repeat offences is automatically subject to adult sentencing provisions.
- Amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act to include deterrence and denunciation as mandatory sentencing principles to be considered.
Establish a national Victims’ Ombudsman Office
The Liberals have often put the rights of criminals ahead of compassion for the victims of crime who have been injured, had their property and privacy violated, or are mourning the loss of a loved one. A Conservative government will give victims of crime an advocate within government.
The plan
A Conservative government will:
- Establish a national Victims’ Ombudsman Office with a budget allocation equal to that of the Office of the Correctional Investigator to ensure victims have a voice in the federal corrections and justice system.
- Provide $10 million per year for victim assistance, including support for victim appearances at parole hearings.
Enact a national drug strategy
The Liberals have put Canada on the road to drug legalization. This must stop. Parents and police officers alike know that the last thing Canada needs is more drugs on our streets. Under the Liberals, the number of marijuana grow-ops has increased dramatically, as has the production and distribution of drugs such as crack cocaine, crystal meth and ecstasy. Despite widespread evidence to the contrary, one of Paul Martin’s new Liberal Senators said that concerns about the crystal meth disaster were “garbage.”
The plan
A Conservative government will:
- End house arrests and ensure mandatory minimum prison sentences and large monetary fines for serious drug offenders, including marijuana grow operators and producers and dealers of crystal meth and crack.
- Prevent the decriminalization of marijuana.
- Make precursor chemicals of crystal meth, such as pseudoephedrine, harder to get.
- Introduce a national drug strategy with particular emphasis on youth. This strategy will encompass all drugs, not just marijuana, in implementing a nationwide awareness campaign to dissuade young people from using drugs.
- Expedite deportation of non citizens convicted of drug trafficking, drug importation, or running grow operations.
- Restore the Canada Ports Police disbanded by the Liberals which resulted in the growth of organized crime at Canada’s seaports
Air India inquiry
The Air India bombing was the largest mass murder and terrorist act in Canadian history, and there is evidence that errors were committed by the investigative agencies involved.
The plan
A Conservative government will:
- Establish, at the earliest possible time, a comprehensive, independent judicial inquiry into the investigation of the Air India bombing of June 23, 1985.
Securing our borders
Terrorist attacks, natural disasters, and outbreaks of disease world-wide have focused the spotlight squarely on the Liberal government’s inaction regarding terrorist and other threats here at home. Four years of inaction since September 11, 2001, have left the federal government ill-prepared to protect Canada’s national security.
The March 2004 report by the Auditor General criticized the government for failing to create an integrated security system. The March 2004 report of a bipartisan Senate committee concluded Canada was “unready” to respond to a terrorist attack. Even the government’s annual National Security Policy review released in April 2005 identified 12 government priorities that have still not been improved or addressed.
Canadians cannot wait for the Liberal government to wake up to the growing threats to our national security.
The plan
A Conservative government will:
- Name a National Security Commissioner with the responsibility of providing recommendations to government as to how to coordinate the work of the Canadian Foreign Intelligence Agency, the RCMP, CSIS, a revitalized Coast Guard, the Canada Border Services Agency, and a reinstated Ports Police, as well as the security aspects of the Departments of Immigration and Transport.
- Expand the Canadian Foreign Intelligence Agency to effectively gather intelligence overseas, independently counter threats before they reach Canada, and increase allied intelligence operations.
- Establish the Canadian Coast Guard as a stand-alone agency and honour the plans to invest $276 million over five years in expanding and updating the Coast Guard fleet.
- Create a National Security Review Committee to ensure effective oversight and a greater degree of accountability and transparency regarding Canada’s national security efforts.
- Ensure that agencies such as CSIS, RCMP, and the Canada Border Services Agency have adequate resources and equipment.
- Provide our border officers with sidearms and the training required for their use, and ensure, for the safety of these officers, that there are no “work alone” posts.
- Reopen RCMP border detachments in Québec and the West and increase resources to the RCMP so that they can respond promptly to border calls when required.
- Deploy face recognition and other biometric technology at border crossings and ports of entry.
Ensuring effective deportation laws
In April 2003, the Auditor General reported that the federal government had lost track of some 36,000 people who were under deportation orders. This is unacceptable. People who are under deportation orders must be removed. Canadians deserve nothing less.
The plan
A Conservative government will:
- Rapidly reduce the backlog of unexecuted deportation orders and swiftly carry out new deportation orders.
- Put the top priority on executing existing and new deportation orders against individuals with criminal records, connections to terrorist organizations, or organized crime.
- Amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Criminal Code and the Corrections and Conditional Release Act to permit sentencing courts to order deportation following conviction on select offences and prohibit persons already ordered deported from parole eligibility before deportation.
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