tough on crime

Canada’s ‘toughest cop,’ he took on some of Montreal’s most notorious thugs, once shooting the testicles off a thief

The Conservative government’s so-called “tough on crime” agenda is creating a predictable crunch in federal prisons. According to documents obtained by the Globe and Mail, prisoners have been sleeping in trailers, interview rooms and gymnasiums in recent years, even as the number of inmates sleeping two-to-a-one-person-cell continues to climb.

The crime rate is down but police forces are growing. We’re poorer as a result, but not necessarily any safer.

With Canada’s crime rate at its lowest since the 1970s, why is the government spending more money on throwing people in jail?

Alex Himelfarb considers the revolution in crime policy that is about to pass the House.

I guess the Conservatives figure they can’t do much worse in Quebec so they might as well go whole-hog on the gutter politics. There’s really no other explanation for their decision to mail a bunch of brain-dead pamphlets to constituents in Bloc-heavy ridings accusing Duceppe’s troops of being “opposed to the protection of children,” a reference to the Bloc’s opposition to a private member’s bill that would set a mandatory minimum sentence of 18 years for those convicted of trafficking in minors:

Mario Dumont can complain all he wants about having been publicly savaged by Chantal Hébert at the end of last year’s election campaign. He keeps proving she was right when she said he’s nowhere near having a coherent idea how to govern the province.

Must-read: James Travers on small-town Grits.

Must-reads: Colby Cosh on the economic meltdown; Chantal Hébert on Gerard Kennedy’s big mistake; John Robson on Elections Canada’s censors; Rosie DiManno on Jeremy Hinzman.