Conservatives Getting Ready To Pick On Youth To Get Votes
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a piece about how the Conservatives have decided to gang up on the youth of this country, tarring and feathering them as being "young punks" and criminals. In that piece, I wrote about Peterborough Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro's recent pamphlet where he went after youth, the same pamphlet that has been sent to other Canadians elsewhere. It wasn't a shock that the Conservatives would go after youth like that because being the "Law and Order for everyone else but I" party that they are, young kids who make mistakes but can't vote to defend themselves from these attacks do make an easy target. And we all know how Conservatives love to take pot shots at easy targets.
Well, this weekend a couple of articles in different news papers have given the strong impression that the Conservatives attacks on the rights of youth are going to continue. The first article came in the CanWest chain of papers, and in that, Conservative Justice Minister Rob Nicholson made the promise to move ahead with controversial legislation:
"Justice Minister Rob Nicholson is promising legislation before the end of the year to further toughen sentences for youths convicted of serious crimes -- despite a ruling by the country's highest court that has narrowed his legal options.
"We want to move on this in the fall," Nicholson said in an interview with The Canadian Press.
"It's part of the government's overall crime-fighting strategy... We're absolutely committed to this, it's one of the focal points of this government."
The Tories promised, in the last election campaign, to change the Youth Criminal Justice Act to make it mandatory for anyone over the age of 14 to be sentenced as an adult for serious offences such as murder, manslaughter and aggravated sexual assault. Many criminal law experts say that proposal went out the window when the Supreme Court ruled in May that even the less onerous sentencing practices adopted by the previous Liberal government went beyond the proper constitutional bounds."
Yep, more American-style mandatory sentencing legislation that tie the hands of our professional judges to do the right thing for the individuals involved. More "one size fits all" crap. And of course the Conservatives are planning to do so despite what the Supreme Court has already ruled on the matter. Of course, we all know what kind of respect the Conservatives have for those "Liberal judges". Needless to say, the Conservatives hard right wing ideology here is totally clouding reason and the research. But if you thought that was bad, let's add the second article I came across to the mix. That came in Saturday's Peterborough Examiner and it was an interview with none other than Dean Del Mastro and some plans that he has for youths:
"Youth Criminal Justice Act reforms are necessary to battle youth crime, particularly removing the blanket publication ban on young offenders' names, Del Mastro said. Del Mastro said he would like to introduce a private member's bill addressing the issue.
"Right now people can commit crimes in anonymity... the community deserves to know (an offender's name). It holds people accountable and shame is a deterrent," he said.
"Parents have a right to know if the person their child is hanging out with at school has been charged with a drug offence or a violent offence."
He points to the local case of Brenda Waudby, who was wrongfully charged with second-degree murder in the 1997 killing of her 21-month-old daughter Jenna. Jenna's 14-year-old male babysitter was convicted of manslaughter, but despite being an adult upon sentencing, his identity was protected under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
"Not only is she accused of a horrible crime, but the person who actually committed it was protected. Nobody will know who actually committed the crime," Del Mastro said. "Naming the offender goes a long way to providing some sense of justice for the victim.""
Yep, Mr. Del Mastro wants to be able to publish the names of young offenders because he believes that will some how "shame" these "young punks" into acting better. What crap. Obviously Mr. Del Mastro or his party doesn't give a crap about the rationale behind those laws: giving the kids who commit the crimes the chance to be rehabilitated, become productive members of society and not have their names forever smeared because of mistakes they made in their youth. Let's face it, once someone has been labeled a criminal in this country, they very, very rarely ever get a chance to turn their lives around. They don't get treated the same way in our society ever again and they are shunned by many. Even if those people have been rehabilitated and have turned their lives around, suspicion remains around them and they are never allowed to become fully productive members of our society. That's something that Mr. Del Mastro obviously doesn't give a crap about.
On top of that, Mr. Del Mastro goes on about "justice for the victim" and some how that naming the offender helps the victims heal. He pointed to the sad case of Brenda Waudby to try to make his case, but his argument totally fell apart. He claimed that in that case, if everybody knew who the killer in this case was, the victims would have more justice. But why does the entire world need to know who the killer was for that family to have justice??? Only the family needs to know in order for there to be justice, and guess what??? They know who killed that poor child because the killer was their babysitter. They know who he is. End of story. What Mr. Del Mastro wants is names and faces, names and faces that he can put on his pamphlets, point to and say "Hey, look, we put these people away".
Now, I'm not trying to defend the actions of those youth who do commit crimes. They do deserve to face the music for what they have done, but they need to do so in a manner that not only takes their age, maturity and such into account, but also needs to be done in a manner so that those youths do not become lost to us. We do not need to create career criminals by sending 14 year olds to jail for hard time with adults and we don't need to alienate and ostracize youth to the point where they cannot be rehabilitated and become lost to our society. The Conservatives believe that everything can be solved with hard punishment, but the evidence and research shows otherwise. The fact is that the crime rate is dropping and youth crime is also falling, but those facts just don't jive with the Conservative ideology. That's why they need names and faces, images to burn this false idea that young Canadians are criminals running amok in our country. And that's another reason why this government needs to go and needs to go now. This kind of crap is the last thing we need in this country, and the Conservatives need to have that message sent to them and have it sent strongly.
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9 comments:
Young people between 18-29 are less likely to vote than older Canadians. Those under 18 cannot vote. There is low risk for Conservatives to attack youth crime even if it is on the decline.
Sample commercial:
Include low pitched sounds and "dark" sillouetted large 17 year old looking kids.
Youth crime is rampant.
Gangs rule the streets.
Does Dion want to be soft on crime?
It's not about kids stealing candy from a store. [shot of small 12 year old white kid's arm and back]
It's about young criminals who rule the streets with knives and guns.
Criminals who commit crimes with knives and guns deserve adult prison time.
The Conservative party will make sure your family is safe by making sure all dangerous criminals deserve adult time.
Skinny... I know that youth are the least likely to vote, but that's something that needs to change. Let's face it, we need our youth to be more involved in political process, not less, and cynical moves like these by the Conservatives don't make youth want to get more involved. It's creating long term pain for the country, all so the Cons might get some short term gain.
What are the Cons going to do? Send Rob Anders outside the Canadian Armed Forces recruit centres and start passing campaign literature? Have campaign workers start dressing in combat fatigues and get young people high on meth to join a radical right wing faction of the Conservative party through anti-Muslim and anti-immigration rhetoric?
Have campaign workers start dressing in combat fatigues and get young people high on meth to join a radical right wing faction of the Conservative party through anti-Muslim and anti-immigration rhetoric?
Well, I know that's how I was convinced to vote for Harper.
All joking aside, the Conservatives are on the right side of this issue. They know that the purpose of a justice system is not to "rehabilitate" criminals to make them "productive members of society" lest their "mistakes" cause their names to be "forever smeared." It's to ensure that those who break the law are suitably punished for their crimes. It's about achieving getting justice - not just for the victims, but for society as a whole.
And frankly, I doubt higher voter turnout among young Canadians would hurt the Conservatives on this file. Since most victims of violent youth crime are (oddly enough) youth themselves, I doubt you would find too many bleeding hearts for the plight of violent thugs among this demographic.
Ben.... the point of our justice system is not to punish and nothing else. It's is designed to rehabilitate whenever and however possible, and that's the way it should be
Ben,
The Cons are on the right side in the political spectrum globally on two issues: counter-terrorism and immigration. So you are not the only one who was brainwashed.
Seriously Del Mastro was trying to be another Polievre with his private members' bill. But the Cons can be persuaded to do nasty things. Electronic tagging of young offenders is one. Sending single parents of young offenders to fail is another. Nicholson knows full well that the Grits cannot abstain on these matters without hurting their core supporters. But he knows that it will rally his core constituencies.
I think Cam would prefer that the political debate should focus on more on this issue rather than Dion's carbon shift. More ideological and reflective of what Harper's political agenda means to Canada.
Typo.
It shold be sending single parents of young offenders to jail because they failed as model parents.
Mush... I'm far from being afraid to discuss Mr. Dion's carbon tax plan, but there are more issues out there than just that.
Cam,
Not questioning your courage with regards to the carbon tax. Just that there is much more for Canadian progressives to be concerned about besides climate change.
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