Crime, punishment and politics

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/05/2024 (511 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

“For any federal politician to announce that they’re willing to suspend or override fundamental rights and freedoms that protect all Canadians at any time — that would be concerning,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Winnipeg, May 16.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s father is considered the father of Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms. So when Pierre Poilievre announces to Canada’s police chiefs that, as prime minister, he would override the Charter of Rights to fight a war on crime, it instantly becomes a national issue.

Nobody reading this requires fresh analysis on why crime is a key political issue, no matter what kind of election is being held.

In the last civic election in Winnipeg, many of the mayoral debates centred on how best to fight crime.

On the mayoralty menu, Kevin Klein was the toughest on crime. Some critics said that if Klein had done more to project an image of being concerned about other issues, he would have done better. It was said by some that Klein, the councillor from Charleswood, might have scared some voters by driving too much of his campaign on the issue of violent crime.

In the recent provincial election, the governing PCs bought bus bench advertising, saying that violent crime would become even worse if the NDP formed government. Some critics of the PC campaign said the Conservatives were driving a racist message. Critics said the advertising was designed to scare people into not voting for a government led by an Indigenous man.

I wasn’t critical of the message for that reason. I simply thought it was stupid.

The ad carried the confession that violent crime was an unsolved problem under the watch of Progressive Conservatives. No serious solution was being offered. Rather than proposing something for voters to chew on, they were given just another slogan to spit on. At least the message wasn’t vulgar, like the billboards bragging about a PC government decision not to search for the remains of Indigenous women.

With the municipal and provincial elections behind us in Manitoba, the next big thing is the federal vote, most likely to be held in the fall of next year.

While that’s far down the road on the calendar, the political truth is fundraising is on the political calendar nearly every day except Christmas. Raising money remains the mother’s milk of politics. The baby needs to be fed every day.

So this past Thursday, the prime minister was hosting a fundraising dinner at the Fairmont where the Free Press reported “119 attendees paid $1,725 each (those 35 and younger paid $875 each.)” Do the math and you come to realize the prime minister, despite poor polling numbers, is still able to raise bushels of cash.

Part of his pitch was attacking his key opponent, Pierre Poilievre, for how the Conservative leader is stickhandling the issue of violent crime. The PM feels Poilievre is offside, promising to be the first prime minister to invoke the notwithstanding clause of the Charter of Rights.

I won’t do here what public people pay a very high price for. I won’t shut down eyeballs by engaging in a lengthy explainer of why the Charter has a notwithstanding clause and why it has been used very rarely by some provincial premiers and never by a prime minister.

I will simply say that if a prime minister down the road were to exercise the clause only on the subject of crime, my political GPS tells me it would not be the end of the world for that prime minister’s government.

If the notwithstanding clause were invoked to make sure that violent offenders such as Paul Bernardo are never given another opportunity for parole, there would be no violent protests in the streets of Canada. I think the prime minister knows that.

But Trudeau also knows that any prime minister who would invoke the notwithstanding clause on crime could also be tempted to do the same thing on issues are far more divisive. If a federal Conservative government were to use the clause to deprive Canadian women of access to abortion, that would ignite a political wildfire in this country, the likes of which we have never seen before.

Are there people in the Conservative caucus who want to take the country through the gates of hell to the days when access to abortion was not a guaranteed right?

Unfortunately for Canada, the answer is “Hell Yes!”

Charles Adler is a longtime political commenter and podcaster. charles@charlesadler.com