End Prohibition in National Post Full Comment

By: Nicole Seguin, National Post Full Comment

 

Mr. Toews states that the Conservative government is ‘unwavering in its commitment to providing law-enforcement agencies with the tools they need to make our streets safer.’

 

Except, it would seem, for the gun registry. The program’s strongest supporters include three national police organizations: the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, the Canadian Association of Police Boards, and the Canadian Police Association. These organizations count the registry as a “valuable tool”, and have spoken out against bill C-391, which continues to be pushed by Conservative MP Candice Hoeppner.

 

Also off the table is any discussion of ending prohibition or removing mandatory minimums for drug offences. The Conservative government has vociferously rejected such suggestions, but they have been endorsed by scientists, researchers, and police officers the world over. Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, made up of current and retired police, calls for policymakers to reexamine a policy which places officers in harm’s way in a futile war.

 

As we see in the United States and Mexico, harsh crackdowns on marijuana and drugs merely increase the risk and profit for criminals, and the level of violence used against police and civilians to protect those profits.

 

There is a strange dichotomy in Conservative public safety policy; a program proven to make communities, and police, safer (the gun registry) is at risk of being cut, yet programs proven to fail (mandatory minimums and marijuana/drug prohibition) are not only lauded but given seemingly limitless funding at the Canadian taxpayer’s expense.

 

Although Stephen Harper and the Conservatives tout their fiscal responsibility and commitment to personal liberty and safety, on the issues of guns, drugs and crime they are neither.

 

Nicole Seguin,

 

National director, End Prohibition

 

Vancouver.