Statistics Canada let a little air out of the Harper government's "get tough on crime" agenda. Today they revealed that Canada now enjoys the lowest homicide rate that we have seen since 1966.
Less serious crimes are also trending downward for the most part. This has put the Harperites in an awkward position. Their dream legislation, an omnibus bill promising a gamut of measures to get tough on criminals, gets a lot harder to sell when the statistics show that crime is going down across the board without it.
Longer mandatory sentences for a wide variety of infractions, the elimination of credit for time spent awaiting trial, stiffer sentences for minor drug infractions, and tougher rules for parole are just a few of the measures that the Conservatives are salivating to introduce. They love the law and order stuff. They want to spend billions on new prisons at a time when government programs of every stripe are being degraded. Thats why these stats are so inconvenient.
They've already introduced an imaginary ace up their sleeve; the disturbing rise of "unreported crime". That's right! They invented this one a little while back. Yes, they assured us, the stats may tell one story, but they don't tell the whole story, and that includes this ominous and wholly imaginary rise in unreported crime. Anyone not sound asleep would immediately wonder how they know about it if it's unreported. That's top secret, but they just know.
They have a plan "B" as well; slash funding to Statistics Canada.
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