Liberal Leader Mark Carney arrives at the Halifax Stanfield International Airport in Goffs, N.S., on April 21.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
For years, there has been one consistent difference in the crime policies of the Liberals and the Conservatives. It can be summed up in a simple idea: guns versus gangs.
For the Liberals, fighting crime meant keeping assault-style rifles and handguns locked up and ever harder to import, sell and purchase. For the Conservatives, fighting crime meant putting bad guys in jail for longer sentences.
The 2019 election campaign was a classic example of this divide. The Liberal platform mentioned “guns” or “rifles” 16 times and the word “gang” once. The Conservatives’ platform mentioned “gangs” 26 times and “guns” four times.
This space has long argued that both are right and both are wrong, on the grounds that the logical way to fight serious crime is a combination of strict gun laws and tough sentences for repeat offenders. Playing up one while ignoring the other might make a convenient wedge issue, but it only gets half the job done.
In this election campaign, one of the two parties has finally seen the light. No, the Conservatives are not suddenly all in on gun control. It’s the Liberals who have discovered the virtues of law and order.
The party’s platform says a Liberal government would “recruit and train 1,000 RCMP personnel” and “train 1,000 new Canada Border Services Agency officers.” It would invest in the Public Prosecution Services of Canada in order to prosecute more complex offences involving fentanyl smuggling and organized crime, so that offenders face longer sentences. And it would allow police to search for and seize fentanyl in Canada Post mail with a general warrant.
Even more compelling is the Liberal proposal to allow courts to impose consecutive sentences for repeat offenders who commit serious or violent crimes.
Consecutive sentences are a lightning rod in this campaign. The Conservatives under Pierre Poilievre have been widely criticized, including by this space, for saying they will use the notwithstanding clause to push through consecutive life sentences for mass murderers, so that someone who kills multiple victims and is given an equivalent number of life sentences with no parole for 25 years will never leave prison.
The Supreme Court ruled in 2022 that consecutive life sentences are unconstitutional because they eliminate the possibility of parole and thus constitute cruel and unusual punishment. Two mass killers, Alexandre Bissonnette and Justin Bourque, were originally given multiple consecutive sentences but are now eligible for parole after 25 years because of the Court’s ruling. Mr. Poilievre has vowed to end what he calls “discounts” for killing multiple victims.
The Liberal proposal for consecutive sentences for repeat violent offenders is something the courts ought to find acceptable, because those convicted have a reasonable shot at parole during their lifetimes.
It could be a solution to the debate about minimum mandatory sentences, which the Supreme Court has also ruled against in some cases but allows for certain gun crimes. It would keep repeat offenders behind bars longer and serve as a strong deterrent to recidivism.
The Liberals remain focused on gun control but still haven’t found the courage to ban handguns outright (only the sale or transfer of existing handguns has been outlawed).
The Conservatives, meanwhile, remain unfortunately adamant that tighter gun control is not needed. And Mr. Poilievre’s over-the-top proposal to invoke the notwithstanding clause is a populist-tinged and reckless blunder.
But there is some merit in the Conservative proposals to increase sentences for repeat offenders, and to institute mandatory life sentences for people who traffic in fentanyl, humans and illegal guns.
Overall, the Liberals, with their belated pivot to law and order, are proposing a more balanced approach that paints inside the lines of the Charter. Where they could learn from the Conservatives is in a tougher approach to the fentanyl-smuggling emergency.
The kingpins in that scourge are killings thousands, harming communities and costing society billions of dollars. A tougher approach to prosecuting them and longer sentences for repeat offenders are welcome. But putting criminals so indifferent to human suffering behind bars for life the first time they get caught is a more just response.