Poilievre detached from the facts
Does Pierre Poilievre even believe some of the things he’s saying these days?
The question arises in the wake of the Conservative leader’s sorties this week into a couple of serious policy areas — bail reform and drug policy.
On bail reform, the Trudeau government on Tuesday produced a bill, C-48, that responds to the get-tough-on-crime mood sweeping the country by making it harder for people charged with some offences to be freed on bail while they await trial. The key measure introduces a so-called “reverse onus” requirement for those charged with an offence involving violence who have been convicted of another violent offence within five years.
It’s hard to argue with that, but in practice the bill probably won’t do much to stop violent crime and it certainly doesn’t address the causes of the kind of random street violence that has been spreading fear in so many cities. But it’s almost exactly what the premiers and territorial leaders asked for in January and it’s been welcomed by police associations as well.
It would seem like a no-brainer for Poilievre to join that chorus, maybe while gloating that the Liberals have been forced to take a harder line on bail. But he went a lot further. He offered a “guarantee” that repeat violent offenders won’t be released — “jail, not bail” for them, he said.
Nice slogan, but if you actually take it at face value it would mean tossing the Charter rights of accused people out the window.
It would mean ignoring a little principle called the presumption of innocence, the basis of our legal system since … pretty much forever. That comes along with things like the right to a fair trial and the right “not to be denied reasonable bail without just cause” (that’s Section 11(e) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms — look it up).
The government can impose limits and conditions on that right (see: reverse onus), but it can’t just abolish it. So the idea that a Poilievre government could “guarantee” that certain people will be denied bail is legally illiterate. It would be unconstitutional, and the courts would certainly say so. Poilievre surely knows that, or at least his advisers do.
Likewise, his outrageous claim that the Liberal government is killing people by allowing provinces to set up safe consumption sites and prescribe safer supplies of opioids to addicts. Study after study has shown those policies have saved thousands of lives by allowing access to pharmaceutical-grade drugs rather than having addicts rely on black-market drugs tainted with deadly toxins that lead to overdoses and deaths. Likewise, safe consumption sites have reversed thousands of overdoses, saving more lives.
The argument that governments should be putting money into treating addiction rather than permitting access to safer alternatives is a false choice. Obviously the answer is to do both.
Again, Poilievre must surely know all this. But there he was in the Commons this week, claiming that “people are dying because the policies of the prime minister are killing them.” His evidence for such an incendiary charge: one story in the National Post that found addicts have sold governmentsupplied opioids to buy fentanyl on the street.
Perhaps it’s naïve to expect political leaders to stay within nodding distance of the facts when attacking their opponents. Exaggeration, rhetorical excess and sheer BS have always been staples of partisan debate.
But Poilievre is carving out new territory here, at least by Canadian standards. He seems to have untethered himself completely from the verifiable facts on some pretty important issues, and is inviting the rest of us to join him on that journey. Either that, or it’s just a big joke and he’s hoping we’ll all go along with it.