Controversy over the accuracy of Statistics Canada's national crime rate, which fell again this year to its lowest since 1973, has entered the debate about the Conservatives' upcoming omnibus crime bill, but opposition critics aren't hopeful the numbers will spark any change to the laws. NDP MP Joe Comartin (Windsor-Tecumseh, Ont), his party's justice critic, said that while StatsCan's crime statistics regime is not perfect, it's still the best in the world.
"It's not perfect: we've got small police forces who don't feed in all the information they should be; we've got busy police forces in metropolitan areas that sometimes slip up and reports don't come in," he explained.
Mr. Comartin, vice-chair of the House Justice and Human Rights Committee, said that he's "not optimistic at all" that the government will be open to amending the legislation to take in expert analysis.
Statistics Canada's latest report, released July 21, show that the volume of crimes, as reported by police forces nation-wide, has declined five per cent in 2010, from 2009 levels. There were decreases in the number of homicides, attempted murders, serious assaults and robberies that took place last year as well. There were also increases in some kinds of crime, including the number of sexual assaults, child pornography and drug offences reported, the agency found.
The report comes as the Conservative government prepares to introduce an omnibus crime bill which packages 'law and order' legislation not passed in the last Parliament. The Conservatives campaigned on introducing and passing bill "within 100 sitting days of the new Parliament."
Michael Aubie, a spokesperson for Justice Minister Rob Nicholson (Niagara Falls, Ont.), said details about just what laws will be in the bill "will be announced in due course." The government has until early March to introduce and pass the bill if it is to remain within the 100 sitting day timeframe.
The crime bills which died on the order paper when the spring election was called include: C-60, the Citizen's Arrest and Self-Defence Act; C-54, Protecting Children from Sexual Predators; C-51, Investigative Powers for the 21st Century; C-50, Improving Access to Investigate Tools for Serious Crimes; C-39, ending Early Release for Criminal and Increasing Offender Accountability; C-23b, Eliminating Pardons for Serious Crimes; C-17 An Act to amend the Criminal Code (investigative hearings and recognizance with conditions); C-16 Ending House Arrest for Property and Other Serious Crimes by Serious and Violent Offenders; C-5 Keeping Canadians Safe (International Transfer of Offenders; C-4 Sébastien's Law (Protecting the Public from Violent Young Offenders) and S-10, Penalties for Organized Drug Crime, which has had its first reading in the House of Commons after being passed by the Senate.
Anywhere from eight to 12 bills are expected to be in the omnibus bills. Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page has said that assuming the prison population, which has already begun to climb, stays level, the crime bills could cost $1-billion a year over the next five years, when it comes to building facilities to house new inmates. He's also stated that the government has not been transparent enough about the costs of the crime bills.
David MacDonald, a researcher and economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives said he thinks the government's crime agenda is divorced from statistical reality.
"The problem with some of the ideological programs that the Conservatives are putting through is that they're just completely disconnected from the facts. This is certainly the case with the crime statistics," he said.
But Scott Newark, a researcher with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, said Statistics Canada's numbers aren't so straightforward and lack some important details.
"What StatsCan reports is police-reported crime, not actual crime," said Mr. Newark, who also served as a special adviser to Stockwell Day in 2006 when he was public safety minister.
"In fairness, it has to be this way because you can't with any statistical accuracy report what the people themselves aren't reporting to the police, that's logical. But, we've got to pay attention to the fact that essentially people are increasingly not reporting crime. It's not helpful to blend everything together and go 'Don't worry, be happy. The overall crime rate is down,'" he said.
He pointed to Statistics Canada's general social survey on victimization, which asks Canadians older than 15 to report whether she or he was a victim of a crime in the last 12 months. Statistics Canada intends the research to be taken into consideration with the official crime rate.
The last survey, which was done in 2009, found that only 31 per cent of all criminal incidents were reported to police, which was down from 34 per cent in 2004.
Mr. MacDonald said that even if it were possible to statistically factor in the country's unreported crimes, he doesn't think it would change the 20-year decline in crime.
"I think that the overall trend is clear, irrespective of how you measure it: crime is going down," he said.
Both he and Mr. Newark noted that as the population ages, there are few people in the demographic that commits the most crimes.
"That's a result as much of demographics as anything else. As the population ages that key men from 15 to 25 demographic that are the ones perpetrating the most crimes, there are fewer of them," said Mr. MacDonald.
Mr. Newark would like to see this information factored into crime data. He said that police collect the information, and they should be passing that data on to StatsCan if they aren't already.
He said that his proposed changes to the way StatsCan measures crime aren't meant to affect policy but to contribute to the discussion about the effectiveness of Canada's judicial system.
"We really don't need to be 'tough on crime' whatever that means, but we do need to be honest about it, so we can be smart about it," he said.
Mr. Comartin said that during the minority Parliament, the government resisted amendments the NDP proposed in committee to Bill C-4, Protecting the Public from Violent Young Offenders, and he doesn't see the situation improving now that it's a majority.
Bill C-4 amends the Youth Criminal Justice Act to treat young offenders more like their adult counterparts, and requires prosecutors to consider trying for adult sentences for teenagers between 14 and 17 who have been convicted of murder, manslaughter or aggravated sexual assault, among other changes.
Mr. Comartin said he thinks the bill is overreaching.
"The idea behind it was to target the young offenders out of control. In fact what it does it is, again by overreaching and taking too broad of an approach, is it's mostly missing those hardcore young offenders and catching the ones who would benefit by the normal approach we take to youth crime," he said.
Another bill causing the NDP concern is S-10, Penalties for Organized Drug Crime. Among other amendments, the bill would impose mandatory minimum prison sentences for drug trafficking. The bill was introduced in the Senate last December, marking the third time the Conservatives have tried to pass the bill.
"Any place in the world that you look where they've tried to combat a drug problem with that kind of legislation shows that it just doesn't work," said Mr. Comartin.
Speaking in the Senate Dec. 14, New Brunswick Conservative Senator John Wallace said it was "important to realize that Bill S-10 is not about applying mandatory minimum penalties for all drug crimes. It introduces targeted mandatory minimum penalties for serious drug crimes and ensures those who carry out these crimes will be appropriately penalized."
Liberal justice critic and former justice minister Irwin Cotler (Mont Royal, Que.) said that the crime policies are "all stick, no carrot." Mr. Cotler said that the mandatory minimums won't serve as a deterrent and will only end up "clogging up the criminal justice system." The omnibus bill will be a "test case" for government's willingness to work with the opposition, he said.
"They've got a majority and I think they could put that majority to effective use by cooperating with the opposition to produce the best type of legislation we can come up with, rather than seeking to ram the legislation through regardless of the evidence, regardless of the expertise, regardless of the opposition that is evidence-based," he said.
Mr. Comartin said however that the Conservatives will continue to instill fear in the Canadian public to ram the legislation through. "They've built so much on this. They've done well by it politically, they've convinced a lot of people in this country that we've got to get tougher on crime in spite of all the evidence to the contrary."
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Source: Hill Times
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