Opposition soft on crooks: Toews

June 08, 2010

By: Mia Rabson

OTTAWA -- Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said implementing more of his government's crime bills with stiffer punishments for offenders will help address the gang crime in Winnipeg likely behind this week's shootings.

"I have spent most of my life in Winnipeg and I'm very much aware of what the crime issue is," said Toews.
He blamed the Liberals and NDP for "dragging their feet" on the Conservative crime agenda. He specifically pointed to amendments made to a bill he introduced as justice minister in 2006 that eliminated house arrest as an option for people convicted of serious and violent crimes.

He said the Liberals and NDP "gutted" the bill by removing certain property crimes from the list of offences ineligible for house arrest.
"They gutted the bill in respect of house arrests and ensured that people who stole cars repeatedly were back out on the street and supposedly in their homes. I was very concerned that Liberals and New Democrats gutted that legislation."

Manitoba NDP MP Pat Martin, whose riding encompasses much of Winnipeg's inner city, said Toews is a "dinosaur" when it comes to the social conditions that cause crime.

"None of their bills on punishment would address the social crisis playing out in the inner city because they're coming at the problem from the wrong end," said Martin. "Locking up a generation of young aboriginal kids is not going to solve the inner city crime."

Both Martin and Liberal MP Anita Neville said the rampant poverty in the inner city is turning neighbourhoods into powder kegs.

Martin said an epidemic of gang violence is the "predictable consequence of long-term poverty and unemployment."
"People tell me they won't sleep on the outside rooms of their homes in the summer because of the gun violence," said Martin. "If you don't address some of these social conditions, they are going to boil over."