OTTAWA — The battle lines were firmly drawn Thursday for a bitter federal election fight in which Conservatives and Liberals will be spitting vitriol at each other over who is tougher on crime.
With the possibility of a spring election still hanging over their collective heads, the Tories launched one of their toughest soft-on-crime offensives on the Opposition Liberals. The Liberals punched back, in effect saying, bring it on.
The heated sparring served as a preview of how law-and-order issues could play out on the campaign trail if the Tory minority is defeated and Canadians are forced to the polls in the coming months.
Justice Minister Rob Nicholson blasted Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff for deciding not to support a bill that would impose mandatory sentences for drug crime. Nicholson, along with retired Ontario police chief-turned-Tory MP Julian Fantino, repeatedly called Ignatieff a “flip-flopper” on the issue.
“I think they have a lot of explaining to do to people who are very concerned about drug trafficking in this country,” Nicholson told a news conference.
But the Liberals immediately fired back, as the party’s public safety critic, Mark Holland, accused the government of hiding the true cost of the bill, which many groups — from churches, to health-care workers, to lawyers — also oppose.
Some estimates say the Tories’ crime strategy will boost the prison population and increase the correctional service’s tab by billions of dollars. The parliamentary budget officer has predicted that the Tory crime crackdown will mean $2 billion over the next five years just to build more prisons.
“At some point we have to draw a line in the sand. We cannot allow Canada to become California,” Holland said. “States like California find themselves near bankruptcy, with policies they are desperate to undo and have little power to change. They have no money for health, no money for roads, no money for infrastructure.”
Holland said the Liberals can’t blindly support a Conservative bill when they’ve been turned down repeatedly for a true costing of it.
“We can’t afford to do this. Not only can we not afford it because it’s so expensive, because it doesn’t work. It doesn’t make communities safer,” he said, noting that seven in 10 who serve time in California eventually re-offend.
Nicholson deflected several questions asking for the cost of Bill S-10, the Harper government’s third attempt at tougher drug penalties. A key provision would require a judge to impose a mandatory six-month sentence for possessing as few as six marijuana plants.
“It would be difficult, if not impossible to guess on that. What we want to do is get the message out to people: don’t get involved with this activity in the first place,” said Nicholson.
Earlier this week, Ignatieff said the bill “isn’t tough on crime, it’s dumb on crime,” and said his party would not support it.
The Liberals were prepared to consider supporting the bill if the Conservatives offered two concessions: lift the minimum number of plants to 20 from six, and disclose the true cost, Holland said.
Nicholson was joined by the president of the Canadian Police Association, which represents rank-and-file officers, as well as Fantino, the Tories’ recently-elected, Toronto-area star candidate, who had a 40-year career as police chief.
Fantino said Ignatieff’s remarks have cast aspersions on the law-enforcement community.
“When we talk about this being dumb on crime, I think Mr. Ignatieff needs to revisit interpreting legislation that is in the greater interest of Canadians. . . . Read the bill, read his comments, and then you tell me how anybody can have confidence in that kind of rhetoric.”
Association president Charles Momy did not personally mention Ignatieff, but said a huge amount of drugs can be produced by just six marijuana plants.
“In simple terms, keep these criminals in jail longer and you take away their opportunity to traffick drugs; it’s that simple.”
Fantino won a seat in a recent byelection in Vaughan, Ont. and is viewed by the Tories as a major player in helping win more seats in the suburban ridings that ring Toronto — called the 905 belt after its area code. Gains in the 905 ridings would give the Tories their elusive majority government.
In recent weeks, the Conservatives launched a new series of attack ads that personally take aim at Ignatieff. Thursday’s skirmish over crime kept up the attacks on the Liberal leader.
“What starker contrast could there be between our two political parties?” Nicholson said. “If he flip-flops on this, he’d flip-flop on anything.”
Holland signalled the Liberals are ready to take a fight over crime directly to Canadians.
“They’re going to attack us personally and say that we’re soft, no matter what we do. They don’t care. They’re out there beating that mantra when we’re supporting their legislation or when we’re against their legislation,” he said.
“I have every confidence that the Canadian public are a lot more intelligent than the Conservatives think they are. When you scratch beneath the veneer of the talking points, they’re going to see this stuff as a complete disaster.”