"The federal Tories have said the legislation will cost the treasury $2-billion over five years, while the Parliamentary Budget Office estimates it will cost Ottawa $5-billion over five years and the provinces somewhere between $6-billion and $10-billion. Meanwhile, the Correctional Service of Canada said this fall it would spend $450-million this year on one element of the Tory anti-crime agenda — 2010 Truth in Sentencing Act that put an end to the routine granting of 2-for-1 sentencing credit for time spent in custody awaiting trial.
All of which is to say, any "additional costs" will be felt all over the justice system. They will be borne by prisons that receive more prisoners and for longer periods of time, and by the front-end of the justice ministry, which is bound to see caseloads increase. The Canadian Bar Association, not normally one to eschew more business for its members, has warned the government that the new legislation will clog the courts as more and more accused criminals work the system rather than accept stiff, mandatory penalties.
So how, exactly, could Quebec et al avoid paying these costs? A new Criminal Code of Canada is a new Criminal Code of Canada; it's not like they could opt to use the old one. At least one Bloc Québécois MP mused yesterday that Quebec could refuse to enforce the legislation, which would work easily if we were talking about, say, an anti-smoking law. In that case, don't issue tickets for wayward smokers. But the omnibus crime bill includes, for example, mandatory minimum sentences for certain drug crimes and sexual offences. The only way to avoid imposing them would be to not convict anyone of those crimes. Or, taking the fight a step further, the provincial ministry could order its Crowns to not seek those sentences, and have judges refuse to hand them out. We would be in uncharted waters at this point, I think. A federally dictated law that the province, possibly provinces, decline to enforce.
A constitutional crisis? Who said majority governments were boring?"
11 comments:
Indeed I believe a constitutional crisis (maybe more than one) is on the horizon. I also believe that Harper is intentionally pushing Quebec toward more separatist thinking. But I think that there is a chance that many jurisdictions could refuse to abide by the federal law. Meanwhile Quebec (and I suspect Ontario) will refuse to destroy their gun registry information. The Federal government is going to lose the coming court case with the CUPW because the imposed settlement was a clear violation of the Supreme Court ruling of HEU vs British Columbia. The farmers have a very good case concerning the illegality of eliminating the Wheat Board. This entire four years of government is going to be a constant court case and a slow bankrupting of the nation. And I am beginning to think that even though Harper wants to pursue his agenda with as little public hoopla as possible, by the time of the next election opposition will be so concerned about the country itself being destroyed that it will unify behind some form of "anything but Harper" campaign.
Meanwhile of course, lawyers will be very busy.
There are so many laws and regulations out there that basically somebody's always guilty of something. The police don't waste their time catching absolutely every jaywalker, and the prosecution chooses which charges it wants to go after. Mandatory sentencing has just shifted discretion from judges, whose job it is to handle that sort of thing, to prosecutors. Quebec may be within its rights to provide prosecutors guidelines on how to do their job.
This scaremongering talk of prisons over flowing with Grandma Perkins, caught for possessing marijuana for her glaucoma... yet I hear no cases where someone was charged for simply growing a few plants for their own use. Has anyone been charged strictly for having a couple plants for their own use? Most of the time, it’s in connection to a grow op or in connection to some other crime. Until I see actual examples, I will continue to call this out as a straw man argument and a lie.
ridenrain, me doth believe thou protest overly......
All one has to do is look south of the border to see what a failure mandatory sentencing is, unless one measures the success it has been in making a success of the prison-industrial complex.
It is ironic that now as many states and even some parts of the DOJ are coming to their senses, thanks to Spiteful Stevie the Dinosaur is forcing Canada back to the past, with his goal seemingly sometime in the early nineteenth century, if not earlier.
As to the fact YOU haven't heard about anybody busting Grandma with Glaucoma, the fact that there are too many laws meaning as anon above says "There are so many laws and regulations out there that basically somebody's always guilty of something, which leads to less and less respect for the law in general throughout the population
Thanks for your expert legal opinion on the CWB and the HEU dispute in BC. I was not aware that previosu parliaments could bind future parliaments but I'm sure you're right and all the internal and external lawyers the CWB consulted before they filed their lawsuit were wrong.
Also, I did not know that a ruling that said that a government could not rip up a contract would apply to a government imposing a contract. Silly me.
So thanks again for pointing out how only laws enacted by Liberal governments are good and should be obeyed and laws enacted by evil Conservatives should be fought and then ignored.
Rat- The ruling was very clear, go an read it. It is not past parliaments limiting the powers of future ones (though that is certainly possible if they changed the constitution), but it is the SCOC limiting the powers of all government - and that is one of their fundamental functions. The ruling said that government had the right to create back to work legislation but they have no right to interfere with the collective bargaining process. They cannot, in other words, imposes a settlement. Rather, the best they can do is impose a process by which a settlement can be achieved. Their favoured option is, of course, best offer arbitration. But the SCOC was very clear that the imposition of a monetary settlement is against the law.
I know that rightwingers don't like constitutions or bills of rights that are intended to compel governments to act according to certain principles of human rights, but thankfully the rightwing has not totally eliminated our rights, though they are trying hard to do so.
America is our neighbor, not our nation. Enough with the US boogey man.
This is a legal-political blog so I’m challenging you folks to show details on someone charged, convicted and imprisoned for simple possession of a personal amount of marijuana. I don’t think it happens in Canada.
Cops in BC regularly walk past folks smoking pot when you can bet they’d be handing out a ticket if it was tobacco. If the current law isn’t enforced now, how can you expect a more relaxed law to take a harder stand?
Saying thousands of pot smokers will be going to jail because of this law is just another pathetic lie.
Kirby - You are blurring the lines with the two cases--HEU and CWB. The HEU case was a charter case where the courts can constrain government because the constitution trumps parliament.
The CWB case is not a constitutional case. It involves a statute--not a constitutional document--that purports to limit the power of a future government to amend or repeal it. In that situation the principle of parliamentary supremacy and the corroloray principle that a parliament cannot bind a future parliament applies. The CWB does not have a good case. In fact its case is a pathetic last ditch effort--regardless of whether you think the wheat boards monopsony is good policy.
As I thought.. There are no examples because it just does not happen.
Ridenrain - The reason it can happen is because of the broad definition of "trafficking". Under the new Conservative bill an individual growing 6 pot plants mostly for his personal use but plans to share some of itwith his brother or buddies that is for the purpose of trafficking and attracts a 6 month mandatory minimum. There are no examples to be given because the law has not been passed yet. Once it does you will see a lot more of it.
ridenrain, looks like you've uncovered the "unreported crime" that the CPC keeps saying is on the rise. The Conservatives will deal with them soon enough, once they get their new prisons.
If a statute is on the books but never enforced, possibly because society isn't in agreement with it, then it should be removed or amended. Otherwise you leave it open to be selectively enforced in the future. The right response isn't "oh, they'd never use the law *that* way", but to change the law so that it fits what everyone says it's really used for.
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