New bill’s focus ‘on danger,’ not numbers: Toews
‘I don’t know if the statistics demonstrate crime is down,’ he tells Senate committee
In the face of criticism about the government’s crime bill and mixed facts about whether crime actually has been going up or down, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews on Wednesday told senators they shouldn’t focus on statistics.
Statistics, he said, are based on what is reported.
There’s more that goes on, he said.
“I don’t know if the statistics demonstrate that crime is down,” he said. “I’m focused on danger.” Toews said his concern is that the public is in danger as long as criminals walk the streets.
The government’s crime bill, Bill C-10, addresses that concern, he said.
“If there’s a danger to them, that danger needs to be addressed and this legislation addresses that,” Toews said.
His answers, though, did not impress all members of the committee, who wanted Toews, and Justice Minister Rob Nicholson, to answer more questions about the crime bill as it makes its way through the Senate.
“Let’s be serious now,” Conservative Sen. Pierre Claude Nolin said as the two cabinet ministers got up to leave. “You’re afraid, minister.” The Senate committee reviewing the legislation, the legal and constitutional affairs committee, has 11 days set aside for hearings. Both ministers asked the committee and Senate to pass the legislation, known as the Safe Streets and Communities Act, as quickly as possible.
Critics have said the bill will increase prison populations and do little to prevent crime.
The ministers argued that wasn’t the case. Toews said Canada’s federal prison population stood at 14,893, lower than the 17,189 prisoners Corrections Canada had forecast, a sign that predicting what will happen with the legislation is tricky business.
The ministers told the committee the government had increased the amount of money it gives to provinces to pay for their penal systems, including a $2.4-billion increase over the past year.
“The cost of crime on society far exceeds the cost of fighting crime,” Nicholson said.
When asked about provincial concerns that the new rules, which include mandatory sentences for drug trafficking and crimes that involve children, would increase corrections costs, Toews said the federal government could easily ask the provinces to cover some of the costs of providing mental-health services to federal inmates.
Toews said provincial decisions have resulted in the federal prisons having had to provide more mentalhealth services to inmates.
“It’s a difficult issue to untangle,” Toews said. “We need to co-operation in terms of the discussion.”