Crime and populism

By Michael Adams. Policy Options. September 3, 2014. See full PDF.

Over the past eight years, the federal Conservatives have seldom missed an opportunity to show Canadians how seriously they take crime and how eager they are to make convicted offenders sorry for their transgressions. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has made punishing crime a showcase priority of his government. He hammered this home in his annual summer speech to the local faithful in Calgary this past July. “If, God forbid, Canadians are attacked, or robbed, if they lose someone they love to a murderer, or if they see their children driven to suicide by bullying and harassment… the first thing they want their government to do is not to make excuses for criminals, but to stick up for victims,” reads the Prime Minister’s prepared speech. “And that is our role.”

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