He comes from a solid middle-class family. He’s a smart, hard-working person with great potential and he’s never been in trouble with the law.
Like millions of Canadians teenagers before him, and at least a quarter of his contemporaries, he’s going through a marijuana phase: something that reliable justice statistics show he will eventually grow out of, just as many police officers, politicians, doctors, teachers and lawyers grew out of.
But times are about to change in Stephen Harper’s Canada.
Under new Conservative crime legislation, this 18-year-old man might never get the chance to reach his professional goals, legal specialists say. Instead, he’ll get a brutal two-year education in a federal penitentiary.
That’s because the young man occasionally does what many in his circle do — swaps small amounts of marijuana with friends.
As he’s walking down a neighbourhood street one night, a police officer spots him hand a couple of joints to a friend.
The two teenagers hadn’t thought about it, but they’re near a school — wherever they go in their urban neighbourhood they’re near a school. It’s night and the school’s closed but that’s no excuse.
The 18-year-old gives some lip to the officer who takes him to the police station and charges him with trafficking. His friend didn’t pay for the marijuana or give him anything in return. No matter. It’s still trafficking under the Criminal Code of Canada.
When the case eventually gets to court, the Crown prosecutor presents the evidence, which is irrefutable, and the judge has no choice but to sentence the 18-year-old to two years in a penitentiary. It’s the mandatory minimum sentence for someone caught trafficking “near” a school or “near” a place where children might gather.
The judge hates not having discretion to consider extenuating circumstances, but the government has given him no choice.
When the young man emerges from prison at the age of 20, he’s carrying the physical and psychological baggage of being incarcerated with hardened criminals and he has a criminal record.
Under the Conservative government’s Safe Streets and Communities Act currently making its way through Parliament, it is probable — some say inevitable — that young Canadian men and women with otherwise unblemished characters will be jailed and branded criminals by their government.
The Conservative government says the new anti-drug measures and changes to the Youth Criminal Justice Act — the most controversial of nine pieces of crime legislation — will crack down on organized crime, keep drugs away from children and make streets safer.
“By moving quickly to reintroduce and pass the Safe Streets and Communities Act, we are fulfilling our promise to Canadians by taking action to protect families, stand up for victims and hold criminals accountable,” Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said when he reintroduced the bill in September.
But a long line of critics say much of the legislation is an expensive recipe for failure.
“It is badly drafted legislation,” says University of Toronto criminologist Anthony Doob. “The government has a role to make good laws and this isn’t good law. We should penalize according to the harm caused and I don’t think that the 18-year-old who gives his 17-year-old friend marijuana deserves a penitentiary sentence. How did kids sharing marijuana suddenly become organized criminals?”
After a recent House of Commons justice and human rights committee hearing into the legislation, Quebec Defence Lawyers Association vice-president Joelle Roy used the example of an 18-year-old going to a rave and being arrested for giving an ecstasy pill to a friend.
“It can happen to you, or me or to our children and even to their children,” she said, with a nod toward Conservative MPs on the committee.
“I see it every day in court. The judge sees in front of him a good kid of 18 years who goes to school and comes from a good family and now he has to send that young man to penitentiary for two years for one ecstasy pill. It makes no sense. The kid isn’t a criminal, but when he comes out he probably will be.”
Mandatory minimum sentences are an attack on the freedom and independence of the justice system, said Roy.
“People who commit crimes time after time will be sentenced for those crimes. We have a system and it works. The government says they want so much to help victims, so why don’t they take that money they will use to build more jails and put it into programs for victims? Canada is a very, very safe country. Why is this government doing this?”
The answer, says pollster Frank Graves, is complicated but lies partly with a politically-shrewd government appealing to its base and to an aging population that craves moral certainty. And, unlike the majority of young Canadians, they vote.
“They tend to be anti-intellectual, anti-science and with little interest in debating the evidence or listening to expert opinion,” says Graves. “Many simply want people who do bad things to be severely punished whether it makes streets safer or not.”
The majority of Canadians still favours measures that prevent crime rather than punish it, but the gap has been narrowing since 9/11, adds Graves.
“But Canadians are still remarkably progressive when it comes to issues of marijuana (more than 70 per cent support decriminalization), same-sex marriage and abortion, and are becoming more so.
“So this may well be the first majority government that achieved its victory with issues on which the majority of Canadians disagree,” he adds.
“That includes tough-on-crime legislation, the F-35 jet purchase, climate change, and scrapping the long gun registry. The majority is opposed, but the majority is scattered and not tightly alloyed around the issues.”
The drug legislation will ensnare a disproportionate number of young people, especially those from minority communities, predicts veteran NDP MP Joe Comartin, who until recently was a justice committee member.
“The fundamental flaw with this legislation is that it is drafted from the perspective of a sleazy, organized drug pusher and ignores the reality that a good deal of drug trading is among kids coming out of the same economic class and same ethno-cultural communities.
After a recent House of Commons justice and human rights committee hearing into the legislation, Quebec Defence Lawyers Association vice-president Joelle Roy used the example of an 18-year-old going to a rave and being arrested for giving an ecstasy pill to a friend.
“It can happen to you, or me or to our children and even to their children,” she said, with a nod toward Conservative MPs on the committee.
“I see it every day in court. The judge sees in front of him a good kid of 18 years who goes to school and comes from a good family and now he has to send that young man to penitentiary for two years for one ecstasy pill. It makes no sense. The kid isn’t a criminal, but when he comes out he probably will be.”
Mandatory minimum sentences are an attack on the freedom and independence of the justice system, said Roy.
“People who commit crimes time after time will be sentenced for those crimes. We have a system and it works. The government says they want so much to help victims, so why don’t they take that money they will use to build more jails and put it into programs for victims? Canada is a very, very safe country. Why is this government doing this?”
The answer, says pollster Frank Graves, is complicated but lies partly with a politically-shrewd government appealing to its base and to an aging population that craves moral certainty. And, unlike the majority of young Canadians, they vote.
“They tend to be anti-intellectual, anti-science and with little interest in debating the evidence or listening to expert opinion,” says Graves. “Many simply want people who do bad things to be severely punished whether it makes streets safer or not.”
The majority of Canadians still favours measures that prevent crime rather than punish it, but the gap has been narrowing since 9/11, adds Graves.
“But Canadians are still remarkably progressive when it comes to issues of marijuana (more than 70 per cent support decriminalization), same-sex marriage and abortion, and are becoming more so.
“So this may well be the first majority government that achieved its victory with issues on which the majority of Canadians disagree,” he adds.
“That includes tough-on-crime legislation, the F-35 jet purchase, climate change, and scrapping the long gun registry. The majority is opposed, but the majority is scattered and not tightly alloyed around the issues.”
The drug legislation will ensnare a disproportionate number of young people, especially those from minority communities, predicts veteran NDP MP Joe Comartin, who until recently was a justice committee member.
“The fundamental flaw with this legislation is that it is drafted from the perspective of a sleazy, organized drug pusher and ignores the reality that a good deal of drug trading is among kids coming out of the same economic class and same ethno-cultural communities.
“When I watch Rob Nicholson answering questions about this in the House,” says the former criminal lawyer, “he clearly doesn’t understand how easy it is to convict someone of trafficking. You don’t even have to be selling it — if you’re giving it away to friends and families, you’re trafficking.”
Only pressure from the provinces will have any influence on whether the legislation is amended before it becomes law, adds Comartin.
Or maybe not.
Quebec Justice Minister Jean-Marc Fournier made an impassioned plea to the Conservative majority on the justice committee to freeze what is an extraordinarily rapid fast-tracking of the legislation and consult with the provinces.
The legislation, especially as it impacts young offenders, is “soft” crime, he said. “What we want is a sustainable protection of the public,” he said.
After 40 years of working on the rehabilitation of troubled youth, Quebec has become a much-admired international model, said Fournier, adding emphatically that Quebec will not pay a penny of the millions of dollars it will cost to implement the new legislation.
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty won’t pay either. “It’s easy for the federal government to pass new laws dealing with crime but if there are new costs associated with those laws that have to borne by taxpayers in the province of Ontario, I expect that the feds would pick up that tab,” he said.
In response, Prime Minister Stephen Harper seemed unimpressed and urged the provinces to do their constitutional duty.
Other provinces, including New Brunswick and Manitoba, favour the legislation, although neither has said how it intends to pay the extra cost.
The lineup of individuals and groups opposed or concerned about the legislation in its current form is long and varied: The Canadian Bar Association, the Quebec Defence Lawyers Association, the Canadian Association of Crown Counsel, the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers, Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy, and the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network. And although they do not speak publicly except from the bench, judges deeply dislike mandatory sentencing.
“For young people whose substance use does not constitute a full addiction, incarceration will be the only option under this bill,” the Students for Sensible Drug Policy told MPs in a brief. “This proposed legislation does not recognize the wide spectrum of reasons why people use drugs. Those young people now branded with the stigma and criminal record as a ‘drug dealer’ will have their future employment opportunities further reduced — the opposite of a successful rehabilitation effort.”
Richard Elliott, executive director of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, says prison, where unsafe drug use is rampant, is the worse place for young drug addicts.
“This is exactly what we should not be doing as a matter of sound public policy,” he says. “Instead of spending hundreds of millions to house people in prisons, think of what that money could do if it was put into expanding access to voluntary treatment in the community. It would pay enormous dividends for public health and individual well-being.”
Only pressure from the provinces will have any influence on whether the legislation is amended before it becomes law, adds Comartin.
Or maybe not.
Quebec Justice Minister Jean-Marc Fournier made an impassioned plea to the Conservative majority on the justice committee to freeze what is an extraordinarily rapid fast-tracking of the legislation and consult with the provinces.
The legislation, especially as it impacts young offenders, is “soft” crime, he said. “What we want is a sustainable protection of the public,” he said.
After 40 years of working on the rehabilitation of troubled youth, Quebec has become a much-admired international model, said Fournier, adding emphatically that Quebec will not pay a penny of the millions of dollars it will cost to implement the new legislation.
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty won’t pay either. “It’s easy for the federal government to pass new laws dealing with crime but if there are new costs associated with those laws that have to borne by taxpayers in the province of Ontario, I expect that the feds would pick up that tab,” he said.
In response, Prime Minister Stephen Harper seemed unimpressed and urged the provinces to do their constitutional duty.
Other provinces, including New Brunswick and Manitoba, favour the legislation, although neither has said how it intends to pay the extra cost.
The lineup of individuals and groups opposed or concerned about the legislation in its current form is long and varied: The Canadian Bar Association, the Quebec Defence Lawyers Association, the Canadian Association of Crown Counsel, the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers, Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy, and the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network. And although they do not speak publicly except from the bench, judges deeply dislike mandatory sentencing.
“For young people whose substance use does not constitute a full addiction, incarceration will be the only option under this bill,” the Students for Sensible Drug Policy told MPs in a brief. “This proposed legislation does not recognize the wide spectrum of reasons why people use drugs. Those young people now branded with the stigma and criminal record as a ‘drug dealer’ will have their future employment opportunities further reduced — the opposite of a successful rehabilitation effort.”
Richard Elliott, executive director of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, says prison, where unsafe drug use is rampant, is the worse place for young drug addicts.
“This is exactly what we should not be doing as a matter of sound public policy,” he says. “Instead of spending hundreds of millions to house people in prisons, think of what that money could do if it was put into expanding access to voluntary treatment in the community. It would pay enormous dividends for public health and individual well-being.”
Incarcerating people for relatively minor marijuana offences is “cracking a nut with a sledgehammer,” adds Elliott.
“Do we really need to throw young people in jail for this?“ he says. “I’m sure the majority of Canadians don’t feel that this kind of activity warrants a criminal record or imprisonment. Why make the vast majority of your population potential criminals for sharing marijuana plants. Where is the sense of proportion?”
Ottawa police officers who are part of a program of interaction with area high school students say they see little evidence that drugs are a major problem, and when school authorities do find marijuana it is in small quantities.
Ottawa Carleton District School Board trustee Cathy Curry says kids need to be punished when they break the law but incarceration is “simplistic.”
“It isn’t taking into consideration what happens in real life,” she says. “Trustees and educators across Canada have learned that there is so much change going on in the teenage brain that they aren’t always as capable of making good decisions as they were when they were 10 and 11. Any parent of teenagers understands that. There are times when your teenager is like someone you’ve never met before.”
The legislation has vocal supporters and almost all of the current round of committee hearings have included victims of horrendous crime and leaders of police associations.
Line Lacasse, a Laval mother whose son Sébastien was brutally beaten and stabbed to death by youth gang in 2004.
“They were 10 young people with no respect for human life,” she told the committee. “If your child was killed in this way you would vote for this bill. We have a life sentence when we lose a loved one. There are no serious consequences for these crimes.”
Quebec Justice Minister Fournier, and others opposed to the increased incarceration of young people, say nothing in the legislation will prevent similar crimes from occurring and accused the government of using high-profile tragedies to justify draconian punishments.
Strong opposition from federal and provincial prosecutors and defence lawyers who say the new laws will cripple an already overloaded court system, and from prison guards who argue that more overcrowding will make prisons more dangerous for inmates and guards, appears to be having no effect.
There is no incentive for the government to backtrack, says pollster Frank Graves
“They have a majority in the Commons and Senate, a neophyte official Opposition whose talent is jockeying for the leadership, a humbled Liberal party and a public that’s sick of politics and isn’t paying attention. And this is a government that clearly signalled its intentions during the last election.
“Do we really need to throw young people in jail for this?“ he says. “I’m sure the majority of Canadians don’t feel that this kind of activity warrants a criminal record or imprisonment. Why make the vast majority of your population potential criminals for sharing marijuana plants. Where is the sense of proportion?”
Ottawa police officers who are part of a program of interaction with area high school students say they see little evidence that drugs are a major problem, and when school authorities do find marijuana it is in small quantities.
Ottawa Carleton District School Board trustee Cathy Curry says kids need to be punished when they break the law but incarceration is “simplistic.”
“It isn’t taking into consideration what happens in real life,” she says. “Trustees and educators across Canada have learned that there is so much change going on in the teenage brain that they aren’t always as capable of making good decisions as they were when they were 10 and 11. Any parent of teenagers understands that. There are times when your teenager is like someone you’ve never met before.”
The legislation has vocal supporters and almost all of the current round of committee hearings have included victims of horrendous crime and leaders of police associations.
Line Lacasse, a Laval mother whose son Sébastien was brutally beaten and stabbed to death by youth gang in 2004.
“They were 10 young people with no respect for human life,” she told the committee. “If your child was killed in this way you would vote for this bill. We have a life sentence when we lose a loved one. There are no serious consequences for these crimes.”
Quebec Justice Minister Fournier, and others opposed to the increased incarceration of young people, say nothing in the legislation will prevent similar crimes from occurring and accused the government of using high-profile tragedies to justify draconian punishments.
Strong opposition from federal and provincial prosecutors and defence lawyers who say the new laws will cripple an already overloaded court system, and from prison guards who argue that more overcrowding will make prisons more dangerous for inmates and guards, appears to be having no effect.
There is no incentive for the government to backtrack, says pollster Frank Graves
“They have a majority in the Commons and Senate, a neophyte official Opposition whose talent is jockeying for the leadership, a humbled Liberal party and a public that’s sick of politics and isn’t paying attention. And this is a government that clearly signalled its intentions during the last election.
“The likelihood any opposition will stop this is close to zero.”
Origin
Source: Ottawa Citizen
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