The Houdini Party

While I'm sure the Liberals are patting each other on the back today for ramming through the Y2Kyoto Bill... which, in reality, will have about as much effect on reducing global warming as sacrificing virgins to the volcano god... I was outraged to hear about a very real problem caused by the Libranos thirteen year practice of progressively filling government positions with their idealogical brethren...

Records show 102,116 pardons were granted since 2000 -- including one for a first-degree murder conviction, another for a second-degree murder conviction and 162 for manslaughter convictions.

Even if I wasn't already a Harper Conservative supporter, the issue of cracking down on criminals, -- which the Liberals oppose at every turn, -- would be enough to turn my head... and my ballot.

It's time to get real about crime.

RELATED: Say what!!???

According to a National Parole Board "fact sheet" posted on the government website, pardons allow people who have proven themselves to be law-abiding citizens to have their criminal record kept "separate and apart" from other criminal records.

The record is removed from the Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC) database and can't be disclosed without permission from the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada.

"The Canadian Human Rights Act forbids discrimination based on a pardoned conviction," the NPB website reads.

UPDATE: Pierre's graven image

Peter Bowal, a University of Calgary law professor, said the judicial selection committees, which Mr. Harper has just altered, were set up two decades ago in response to rampant Liberal patronage.

When former prime minister Pierre Trudeau left office, he said there was a "stampede" of party loyalists into plum positions, including the judiciary, that successor John Turner did nothing to stop -- giving rise to Brian Mulroney's 'You had an option, sir,' zinger during a televised debate.

ASK A REAL PRIME MINISTER

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said the statistics are proof the Liberals were soft on crime while in power.

"I would like to know how he explains today the report that under his government, the National Parole Board awarded more than 100,000 pardons over the last six years, including two for murder convictions," the PM said in the House of Commons yesterday in response to a question from deputy Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff.

Technorati Tags: Stephane Dion, politics of deception, first-degree murder