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A Newfoundland-based criminologist is urging Manitobans to speak out against the federal government’s omnibus crime bill in an attempt to stop it from passing, arguing the proposed legislation is not based on any evidence but rather, motivated by a "Conservative punishment agenda."
   
Justin Piché, an assistant professor of sociology at Memorial University,  used a lecture at the University of Manitoba last week to blast Bill C-10, aka the Safe Streets and Communities Act.
   
Speaking via Skype, having been stranded in St. John’s by a snowstorm the night before, he called the proposed legislation "costly, ineffective, unjust and inhumane."
   
Piché said Bill C-10 will not lead to increased public safety. "The issues that led to someone being in prison are not resolved when we throw them in there." Instead, he said it will result in more people being incarcerated in already over-crowded jails for longer periods of time and with fewer chances of rehabilitation.
   
Bill C-10 includes nine pieces of legislation previously introduced in the House of Commons by Conservatives when they had a minority government. Changes being proposed include: new mandatory minimum sentences for a variety of offences (drug offences in particular); longer maximum sentences for certain crimes; restrictions on the use of conditional sentences such as house arrest; the creation of new Criminal Code offences related to child sexual exploitation; and reforms to the Youth Criminal Justice Act that would see more young offenders kept in jail while awaiting trial, and longer sentences for youth who commit violent crimes and repeat offenders.
   
While Piché said the total costs of Bill C-10 remain unknown — "our politicians don’t trust us with that information" — he noted the financial impact of the "incarceration binge" that will come as a result of the legislation will be borne primarily by provinces and territories, which will be responsible for locking up the majority of those sentenced as a result of the new measures.
   
Piché is not alone in his criticism of Bill C-10; many Canadians have been lobbying against the proposed legislation since it was tabled on Sept. 20.
   
Local efforts have included a rally at the Manitoba Legislative building, a protest outside the office of Conservative MP Joyce Bateman and a 24-hour occupation of Manitoba Justice Minister Andrew Swan’s Sargent Avenue constituency office.
   
John Hutton is the executive director of the John Howard Society of Manitoba, a non-profit organization that works with male offenders.
   
"Our biggest problem with (Bill C-10) is it doesn’t work," Hutton says, noting other jurisdictions such as Texas have already tried reducing crime through increased incarceration and are now abandoning the practice. "It hasn’t worked. It won’t work. So why are we about to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on something that’s not going to work?"
   
Hutton says Bill C-10 will create "absolute chaos" in provincial justice systems. "It’s going to create backlogs in the court, it’s going to create even longer remand times, it’s going to force the government to spend money on more jail cells," he says.
   
"It’s incredibly short-sighted and foolish for the government to be going down this route."
   
Though the governments of Quebec, Ontario and Newfoundland and Labrador have come out against Bill C-10 due to the associated costs, Manitoba’s government supports the legislation.
   
"We’ve been calling for many of the things contained in Bill C-10, in some cases, for almost a decade," says Swan, defending the provincial NDP’s position. In particular, Swan says the Manitoba government supports the proposed changes to the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
   
"The act, as it now stands, really doesn’t give judges the tools that they need to control a small but potentially dangerous number of young offenders who have escalating behaviour, who are repeat offenders, who pose a real danger to our streets and our communities," Swan says.
   
"Manitobans tell me that they want those people off the street and out of their communities."