Ottawa, ON – Larry Brock, Conservative Shadow Minister for Justice and Attorney General of Canada, issued the following statement:
“Mark Carney said that keeping Canada safe has been his government’s focus since day one. Yet it has been six months without legislation and Carney is still refusing to repeal the ‘principle of restraint’ that requires repeat, violent offenders to be released ‘at the earliest reasonable opportunity and on the least onerous conditions.’
“Carney’s half-baked attempt to copy-paste the Jail Not Bail Act repeats the Liberals’ previous failure with Bill C-48 to repeal the Principle of Restraint, which has done nothing to stop the crime wave. When Liberals had a chance to vote for the Conservatives’ bill, they chose to let violent offenders roam free rather than protect innocent Canadians.
“Despite trying to copy the Jail Not Bail plan, he told Canadians that it lacked support from law enforcement and that putting violent criminals in jail would be “unconstitutional.” That’s despite backing from law enforcement in major Canadian cities, including from the Toronto Police Association.
“It’s not the only Conservative legislation from which the Liberals pretend to lift. MP Rachael Thomas’ Bill C-246 would make consecutive sentences mandatory for crimes like sexual assault, while the Liberals’ would only ‘allow’ them, which is already the case in most situations. But instead of supporting Thomas’ proposal, the Liberals silently repealed consecutive sentences for human trafficking after never bringing them into force.
“Meanwhile, Carney is recycling his six-month-old promise to hire more police officers despite his own Public Safety Minister saying, ‘I’m not responsible for hiring’. Canadians cannot trust the Liberals to keep their promises when they won’t take accountability for implementing them.
“For a decade, Carney’s Liberals dismantled tough-on-crime laws, gutted jail sentences, and let gangs and extortionists rule our streets. The results: since 2015, violent crime is up almost 55 per cent, the number of sexual assaults increased over 75 per cent, gun crime surged 130 per cent and extortion has skyrocketed 330 per cent.
“You can’t put a criminal only halfway in jail; halfway measures won’t end the scourge of crime and disorder in our communities. It’s time for the Liberals to deliver real change by reversing their reckless policies and adopting the Conservative plan to restore safety to our streets.”