BRIANA HILL
CUP Ottawa Bureau Chief

A Leadnow protester shows off her anti omnibus crime bill signage.

Citizens from across the country, donning cowboy hats, delivered to MPs’ constituency offices petitions and copies of a condemning report released by the Canadian Bar Association, encouraging their members of Parliament not to “mess up like Texas.”

“One of the things that we’ve seen is that even conservative Texans have come up to Canada and warned us not to follow their path by using things like mandatory sentences to fill their prisons, and create, really, a permanent under-class of people that have been criminalized in a vastly expensive prison system that sucks resources away from crime prevention and rehabilitation,” explained Leadnow executive director Jamie Biggar.

Approximately 500 participants, many from regions outside of urban centres, participated in the mass action.

“The core thing that we’re opposed to is mandatory sentences,” said Biggar.

“It’ll fill our prisons — it’ll make it impossible for judges to make common-sense decisions about what an appropriate punishment would be for the crime, given the circumstances of the offender,” he continued. “It’ll mean that a young person going through a slightly rough patch in their life will go to prison, essentially for years … instead of going into rehabilitation and reintegration programs that would bring them back into society.”

Bill C-10 is currently before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights and could reach royal assent as soon as March 2012.

But despite a Conservative majority in the House of Commons and the Senate, which is likely to help quickly pass the bill into law, Biggar is optimistic public dissent may still sway Parliament.

“We believe that a lot of Conservatives have grave concerns about this bill and that by adding our voices and getting out into the public and by showing public opposition to this bill, that we strengthen Conservative MPs who have concerns about this bill and make it more likely that at a minimum we’ll get some amendments and changes before it passes.”

Biggar is also pleased to see provincial opposition to the bill and hopes that by continuing to display public opposition, citizens will strengthen the positions of Ontario and Quebec in particular, who are currently refusing to pay for the expansion of the justice system this bill would create.

Leadnow is also proposing an alternative of its own.

“What we’re offering, as an alternative … would be to establish a citizen’s assembly for justice that would include diverse citizens and experts to come up with a new plan for 21st century Canadian justice,” Biggar explained. “We hope to be able to create such an entity regardless of what happens with this bill.”

The vision for the assembly is similar to previous royal commissions, such as the Romanow report on health care, which, in 2002, presented recommendations on strengthening health care in Canada after interviewing tens of thousands of Canadian citizens, political representatives and health care professionals.

“We’d like to build on the success of royal commissions by having a similarly well-resourced initiative, but one that would include a broader range and diversity of citizens and experts in an ongoing way,” said Biggar. “And [it would] potentially include more Canadians, in more participatory democracy practices like online voting or commenting, and [in] participating in the decision-making of what our justice system should look like going forward.”

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Photo: Leadnow