UPDATE: 8 Mar 2007 - The plague spreads...
-- OTTAWA -- Christine Stewart, who was the Liberal environment minister when Canada signed the Kyoto agreement in 1997, said none of her cabinet colleagues -- including current party leader Stéphane Dion -- supported her efforts to put a real plan in place to meet its ambitious targets.**********
As spring, and coincidentally, election season approaches... I am warily scanning the political nooks and crannies for the re-emergence of the plague-carrying Rattus Liberalis.
-- Rattus Liberalis, like its better known and cuddlier cousin Rattus Rattus, is a nonemetic species. One of the particular talents of Genus Rattus is its ability not to vomit, which conveniently allows it to feast on its own young. --Sure enough, skulking in the political shadows, Liberal Attorney-General Michael Bryant, in a position paper apparently hand-crafted for the Alpha Rodent himself, does not disappoint.
Stephen Harper's Conservative government has effectively established a reputation for confronting and combatting gun and gang violence, the paper asserts.These words seem to indicate Mr. Bryan is sidling ever closer to the Harper position, which, roughly translated, calls for "less coddling, more cops."
In contrast, "Liberals trumpeted a trickle-down social-safety net approach, arguing that a strong anti-poverty social-safety net will address the root causes of crime."
Mr. Bryant, who is widely perceived to be somewhere to the political left of Sharon, Lois and Bram, goes on to state...
"The Liberals have very little substance to offer by way of alternative, and certainly nothing new or effective. The typical federal Liberal approach to crime, in a word, is a boomer approach that is stuck in the summer of love."As I sit here thunderstruck, watching the Liberal Attorney-General channeling Charlton Heston, I start to recognise the sickly sweet smell permeating the air all around me.
It smells like... surrender.
As if he hasn't already created a large enough hole in which to bury both Dion and his unfortunately labelled pooch, Mr. Bryant finishes off with an argument straight from the Harper Conservative playbook...
The Liberals argue that studies show tougher sentences do not deter crime. Mr. Bryant contends such reasoning fails to "embrace the irrefutable logic of incapacitation," the policy of getting criminals off the street and in jail, which the paper describes as "a powerful tool to rebuild communities under siege."Michael Bryant, if I didn't think the gesture might be misconstrued... I could kiss you.
Such policies employed at the provincial and municipal level, the Ontario Attorney-General claims, led to a 25-per-cent reduction in shootings and a 40-per-cent reduction in gun homicides in Toronto last year.
Thank you from the bottom of my scary, hidden heart.
**********
UPDATE: UK still on "root causes" cowpath
The government has been accused of a "knee-jerk" reaction to the recent spate of gun crimes among teenagers.
The comments from the Society of Black Lawyers comes as Home Secretary John Reid meets community leaders and police at a second gun crime summit.
The society said tougher sentences would not address the root causes and the talks were a "photo opportunity".
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