To the Editor:
Stephen Harper often offers free advice to others, but rarely practices his own preachings.
Not long ago, he was lecturing European leaders on how they should work better together. This is a bit gratuitous coming from a Prime Minister who refuses to meet with provincial leaders within Canada.
On the economy, energy, the environment, pensions, healthcare, employment insurance, immigration - you name it - Mr. Harper repeatedly issues edicts with no consultation or collaboration. The provinces ask for discussions; Mr. Harper turns his back.
A subject-matter that could benefit from coordinated federal-provincial-municipal action is community safety. All three orders of government need to function in concert together.
But Mr. Harper doesn't work well with others. He's not big on cooperative partnerships. His Ministers for Inter-governmental Affairs are largely a waste of space. Mr. Harper's behaviour is consistently unilateral and arbitrary - nowhere more so than on crime and public safety.
For six years, his approach has been characterized by three things:
a PR campaign to stoke public fears (because Harper-Conservatives think this serves them politically), even while crime stats in Canada have been steadily declining for more than 20 years;
federal budget cuts which undermine police forces, corrections officers, border services, etc., while also downloading major costs onto provinces;
and, US-style sentencing policies which tend to be unconstitutional, make our society less (not more) safe, and clog-up the justice system - policies that right-wing American lawmakers (like Newt Gingrich) describe as abject failures.
Instead of an approach driven by ideology and partisanship, wouldn't it be more useful to assemble all relevant federal, provincial and municipal authorities to have a rational, evidence-based discussion of what we really need and what really works to enhance public safety?
How best to rebuild Regina's anti-gang program, for example, and other crime prevention tools? How to fight family and community dysfunction in inner-city neighbourhoods - before, not just after, crime occurs?
How to strengthen community-based policing? How to speed-up and bolster investigations and prosecutions, with complete cooperation from all agencies at all levels? How to maximize the usefulness of new technologies?
There are many topics to cover. But one thing is clear - a constructive effort to engage and collaborate is likely to be more effective than confrontation and polarization.
Ralph Goodale, MP, Wascana, SK.
