Bill C-10: Do GN’s minister, deputy minister know what they’re talking about?

I’ve noticed that both the minister and acting deputy minister of justice have been quite vocal on the national stage in their opposition to Bill C-10, the proposed federal legislation that will introduce mandatory minimum sentences for certain crimes.

While their desire to speak publicly on criminal law policy initiatives is laudable, it would be helpful to intelligent voters in this territory and in Canada if they could offer some assurance that they actually know what they are talking about.

For example, acting deputy minister Norman Tarnow was quoted in the Feb. 18 issue of the Globe and Mail stating that Bill C-10 is “in some cases, it’s going to force prosecutors to charge people with lesser offences to avoid an unjust sentence.”

Obviously, Mr. Tarnow did not familiarize himself with the prosecution policies of the Public Prosecution Service of Canada, which prosecutes in Nunavut.

If he did, he would know that those policies do not allow prosecutors to authorize lesser charges, or to negotiate pleas to lesser charges, for the sole purpose of avoiding a mandatory minimum sentence.

Given the federal prosecution policies that are in place, Mr. Tarnow’s statement is essentially rubbish and has no value in informing the debate. By the way Mr. Tarnow, the policies are available online, so please read them.

With respect to Bill C-10 generally, I think that intelligent voters have little time for our minister, Dan Shewchuk, to sit before a Senate committee acting like a chicken little, stating that the sky will fall in Nunavut as a result of C-10.

It is true that our prison is overflowing and there is no relief in sight. However, that is due to the pathetic and abysmal lack of proper corrections planning on the part of the Government of Nunavut. It is simply disingenuous, if not dishonest, for the government to attribute its future woes to the implementation of Bill C-10.

I suppose the problem that Minister Shewchuk has with informed voters when it comes to Bill C-10 is that we are not persuaded by mere platitudes and bald statements that the legislation, in itself, will necessarily result in huge increases in the number of offenders being imprisoned who would not otherwise be there if the bill had not become law.

As we know, Bill C-10 proposes to do a number of things, such as eliminating the conditional sentence of imprisonment for serious personal injury offences and prescribing mandatory minimum sentences for sexual offences against children, and certain drug offences.

If the minister wants to make his case, why not go back one or two years and show us the statistics regarding,

a) how many offenders were convicted of a serious personal injury;

b) how many offenders were convicted of sexual offences against children and were sentenced to less than the mandatory minimum proposed by Bill C-10; and

c) how many offenders were convicted of drug trafficking offences and were sentenced to less than the mandatory mimimums proposed by Bill C-10.

If his department is unable to do the work to make his case that Bill C-10 will put corrections in Nunavut under water, I am sure the government has many consultants on the payroll who can.

Personally, I am not sure whether Bill C-10 will be a terrible thing for Nunavut.

However, until the minister makes a strong empirical case to support his view, I’m not going to buy what he is selling.

In other words, running around like chicken little is worth to me about as much as chicken feces.

(Name withheld by request)
Iqaluit

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