When will government get serious about crime?

Last week, Toronto ended its pilot program of surveillance cameras on selected street corners within the city. The Opposition Caucus supported the surveillance program, knowing we in all areas of Ontario cannot stand idly by while crime persists in our communities.

Already in 2007, Ontario has witnessed a plethora of violent crimes – many of which involve illegal firearms. According to the Toronto Star, criminals prefer to use 9mm, .40 and .45 calibre hand guns.

Noticeably absent from this list are the shot guns and rifles that farmers and rural landowners are forced to identify on the wasteful gun registry. The sooner we can move away from the gun registry and toward real solutions to tackle crime, the better. As a side note, Premier McGuinty’s support of a total handgun ban will do more damage than good.

Last year, John Tory called on the Province to stop dithering and delaying on its promise to hire one thousand new police officers. Given that Mr. McGuinty made the promise in 2003, Mr. Tory felt it would have been reasonable to keep the promise by the end of 2006, not 2008 as now planned by Mr. McGuinty.

For years, governments have hidden behind the ill-fated gun registry as proof they were serious about tackling gun crime – all the while, gun-crime went unchecked. That’s why I’m encouraged that the federal government is now moving away from bloating the bureaucracy with an expensive gun registry, and toward strengthening real law enforcement.

In December, John Tory introduced legislation that would force the government to keep statistics on the number of offences involving firearms or violence, wait times for trials, bail violations, and credits awarded for time spent in custody before a conviction.

In his speech to the Ontario Legislature, John Tory lamented the fact that the Ontario Government is able to tell us the number of eggs produced in the province in any given year, but is oblivious to the number of bail violations or firearm offences in the same period. Somewhere, our priorities seem to be out of whack.

Mr. Tory continues to support fixing the justice system, including tougher sentencing, opposing bail for gun criminals, toughening sentences for young offenders, stopping illegal guns at the border, and having probation and police officers visit the homes of first-time offenders.

As a society, we cannot allow violent criminals to be out on the streets just days after they are initially arrested. And we need to establish mandatory minimum sentences for violent crimes – if you do the crime, you should do the time.

Locally, we’ve witnessed first-hand how the McGuinty government can’t be bothered to take violent crime seriously. At Caledonia/Six Nations, there is still an outstanding arrest warrant for the attempted murder of a police officer.

Despite initially playing the role of ‘bad cop’, and threatening to cancel land negotiations until an arrest is made, the Premier caved and returned to the negotiating table. In caving, Premier McGuinty demonstrated his weak-kneed approach to violent crime, and showed that he is willing to be pushed around.

If you agree that something needs to be done about Premier McGuinty’s soft-on-crime approach, send me an email at toby@tobybarrett.com. Armed with your feedback, I’ll be better equipped to push for a tougher approach.