Tough on Crime? Hardly.

Stephen Harper was in Vancouver yesterday, and aside from his announcement of federal funding for a rapid transit line known as the Evergreen Line, there was nothing else that his visit provided that appeared remotely useful to the people of the Lower Mainland.

Metro Vancouver has been gripped by a massive wave of gang violence over the course of the past month, with 18 people having been killed thus far. This bloodbath is showing no signs of slowing down, and what's most shameful is that the Prime Minister chooses to play politics while the bodies are piling up. What is disturbing is that the Prime Minister used an ongoing crisis to try and score some cheap points. Don't believe me? Here are his own words:

The truth of the matter is, those who say that the tougher penalties on perpetrators will not work don’t want them to work because they don’t believe in his kind of approach. We know that we’re going to hear these critics, and we know that we’re going to hear the opposition parrot some of these critics because they all believe in soft-on-crime policies.

What's shocking here is that both the Liberals and the NDP had already indicated their support for the sort of legislation that was being tabled, and after Harper spoke, both parties reiterated their support for the measure, but these so-called "soft-on-crime" parties indicated that they didn't feel that the measures went far enough. I'm inclined to agree.

BC Attorney-General Wally Oppal was in Ottawa to meet with the Justice Minister to suggest some solutions of his own. These proposals would actually do something about the problem. Mr. Oppal pointed out that increased sentencing on its own is meaningless. This isn't a bleeding-heart belief; in this case, it is a simple matter of fact. Our police are not catching these criminals. When they do, they are not getting the evidence needed for the Crown to secure a conviction. If you can't catch someone, or convict them, then sentencing is meaningless. Now, don't get me wrong here. I am not criticizing our police, nor am I criticizing our prosecutors. They are being denied the tools that they need to actually catch these people. For years now, provincial Attorneys-General have been lobbying this Conservative government to change our laws to make things more streamlined. Our wiretap laws are so antiquated that they do not make provision for e-mail, cellular phones, PDA's, etc. Our disclosure laws are now so onerous that police departments have to pull officers off the street to satisfy the requirements of those laws. Those are officers that could be out there keeping us safe, but who have to waste months, and sometimes years, doing paperwork. Something is very wrong here.

Then, of course, there is the utter joke of 2-for-1 sentencing. For those of you who do not know, 2-for-1 is the name given to a sentencing credit system, whereby those who spend pretrial and/or trial in detention are given double credit for time served. If you spend a year in lockup, they'll knock two years off your sentence. Sometimes, that number can go as high as 3 to 4 times the time actually served. Every single one of Canada's provincial Attorneys-General has fought for an end to this travesty, and yet our tough-on-crime Justice Minister isn't interested.

It's time to face reality: the Conservatives don't care about keeping us safe. They care about two things: staying in power, and attacking their opponents. If there is widespread opposition support for a measure, odds are that the Government will do anything they can to kill it, even as people are slaughtered in shopping mall parking lots, in the middle of the street, and all in broad daylight. A Prime Minister who acts with such reckless disregard for public safety has no place holding his office. Canada deserves a Prime Minister who actually cares, and it's high time we had one.

Inauguration Day in America

As I write this, it's nearly midnight on the West Coast, marking the end (at least for me) of what has been a spectacular day. There is a sense of wonder, when you really consider it, about the transition of power that happens every 4 or 8 years in the United States. The peaceful transition of power is something that has been going on in that country for hundreds of years, and it's become so routine that many of us take it for granted. Yet when you consider it, and look at all of the countries around the world that still are unable to accomplish this feat, it does give one pause to consider the significance of what we witnessed today.

The inauguration today caps off what is practically a Hollywood fairytale. The son of an immigrant from Kenya who met a woman from Kansas. The child of a single mother who remarried and moved overseas, but eventually sent her son home to be raised by grandparents in Hawaii. A young man who wanted to get to know his parents better, but lost them both far too early. This was a man, with a remarkably odd name no less, who rose from obscurity to become the first African-American President of the Harvard Law Review, and then quickly rose through the ranks of politics, gave a keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention, and became a US Senator. It's virtually inconceivable that a freshman Senator, only two years into his term, managed to take on, and ultimately defeat the most powerful family in the Democratic Party politics.

With the Clintons dispatched, defeating John McCain must have seemed to be a far easier task, but Mr. Obama never let up, never rested, and pushed with a singular conviction that is rarely seen. He did what few have been able to do: win the Presidency with his own ideals and convictions intact.

It can safely be said that when they make the movie about the road to this Presidency, they won't need to embellish anything. As rare as it is, we have managed to live an amazing story, and I want to congratulate all my friends in the United States for getting it right this time. As your friends and your neighbours, we wish you well, and we with President Obama every success as he takes on some very difficult challenges.

On another note, I have to laugh at someone today, because it's so much fun. In what will be a moment that will forever haunt US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, he screwed up administering the oath of office. John Roberts, ever the perfectionist, the man who never said or did a thing wrong in his life finally had it all catch up with him in front of the billions of people watching him. He had plenty of time to prepare; all he had to do was memorize 35 words of the Constitution. Mr. Obama managed to do it just fine. Suffice to say: whoops!