The man who would be prime minister has placed the current catch and release approach to violent criminals square in his sights—something most Canadians can get on board with—but as usual, with politicians of all stripes these days, Pierre Poilievre twists the truth to accent his point and in the process threatens to end one of our most cherished democratic liberties—the right to be innocent until proven guilty.
Law and order has always been a stalwart plank in the Conservative Party’s electoral posturing—even when crime was demonstrably on the steady decline—more a facet of an aging baby boomer collection of criminals than any governmental action or inaction. When crime is on the rise, “soft on crime” accusations rise even more to the fore.
Mr. Poilievre continuously throws out the slogan “jail not bail.” It’s a nice fast sound bite. But he backs that policy statement with facts and figures culled from fantasyland (albeit cited from communications coming out of lotusland west). The man who would be PM alleges that the same 40 offenders were arrested 6,000 times in one year—an allegation that is demonstrably not only untrue. He goes on to compound that twist by laying down the erroneous claim that those arrests were for serious violent offences and that the perpetrators were released “within hours.”
The numbers being cited by Mr. Poilievre are somewhat “real” but spun through twists that would make Chubby Checker proud. The crimes being referred to are not violent offences, but rather property crimes—you know, the kind of crimes most often committed by the poor, the dispossessed and the marginalized in society. By his rhetoric, Mr. Poilievre would suggest those people should be denied bail—presumed guilty.
Mr. Poilievre also conveniently contracts the timeframe to accentuate the negative—without any proof of the proof.
Like everything else he deems “broken” in Canada, Mr. Poilievre lays the blame for the catch and release system on the current prime minister. Oddly, our nation is regularly being cited as one of the best, if not the best, places in the world to live is not Justin Trudeau’s fault. Luckily for the Tories, Prime Minister Trudeau seems to have become a lightning rod for all of the post-pandemic frustrations of Canadians while reaping none of the benefits of having kept the economy (and many households, particularly those headed by the young and marginalized) afloat.
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees that anyone charged with an offence has the right to not be denied reasonable bail without cause. True, part of the Liberal’s Bill C-75 was aimed at making it easier to obtain bail—provisions that were aimed at reducing the number of Indigenous, Black and otherwise “racialized” persons, as well as the mentally ill, incarcerated in the justice system. The Liberals have attempted to course correct somewhat with Bill C-48, passed in response to police chiefs and provincial premiers, that is squarely aimed at the very repeat violent offenders Mr. Poilievre conflates in his rabble-rousing sound bites.
The Charter of Rights and Freedoms is messy, inconvenient (especially for Conservative premiers who want to run roughshod over it for expedience’s sake) and sometimes downright frustrating. But it beats the alternative—tyranny of the majority and mob rule.
Too often, populists stand ready to throw the baby of our liberties out with the politically expedient bathwater of reactionary politics.
Catch and release is a problem that must be addressed, true, but not at the expense of innocence until proven guilty. Society must be protected against the monsters who dwell within our ranks and there are legal levers and tools in place, imperfect though they may be, to ensure we live in a country where peace, order and good government prevail.
