A taxpayer-funded Harper government ad campaign for victims of crime is shockingly hypocritical, since the Conservatives have spent more money on the ads than they have on actual initiatives to help victims of crime, Liberal Status of Women Critic Anita Neville and Winnipeg North Liberal Candidate Kevin Lamoureux said today.
“The Conservatives are spending money on websites and ads while cutting funding that real victims desperately need and breaking their promises to our police,” said Ms. Neville.
“We support victims programs and more local police presence, not more advertising promoting crime bills that were scrapped when Stephen Harper shut down Parliament last year,” said Mr. Lamoureux.
The government’s quarterly advertising report shows that $6 million was set aside to produce and run an ad campaign directed at victims of crime. (hyperlink to http://victimsmatter.gc.ca/index.html)
According to the recently released Public Accounts, lapsed funding for the Victims of Crime Initiative last year amounted to just under $4 million, or 45% of available funds. That means that in 2009-10, they spent $4.8 million helping victims of crime, versus $6 million this year spent advertising how they helped those victims.
Winnipeg North Liberal Candidate Kevin Lamoureux said the ad campaign is deceptive to Canadians and a waste of taxpayer money.
“Our communities need smart solutions to make them safer, not expensive TV commercials,” said Mr. Lamoureux. “The Conservatives didn’t help victims when they broke their promise to hire 2,500 new police officers, a move that frontline police officers called a ‘betrayal.’”
Anita Neville said that Stephen Harper must be held accountable for killing his own crime legislation.
“When Stephen Harper shut down Parliament last year, he killed his entire crime agenda,” she said. “He put every single bill back to square one, meaning each one has had to be re-introduced, delaying them becoming law by months or years. And yet, if you listen to the ads, you’d swear they were in effect right now – which is simply untrue.”
BACKGROUND
Several of the bills Mr. Harper threw out when Parliament was prorogued were aimed specifically at helping victims, such as:
• Bill C-52, which provided retribution for victims of white-collar crime;
• Bill C-43, giving an increased role to crime victims in the parole process; and
• Bill C-36, which eliminates the “faint-hope” clause for those serving life sentences.
The Conservative ads says they are “Protecting Youth from Sexual Predators,” but several bills that Mr. Harper scrapped were aimed specifically at protecting children:
• Bill C-58 – Required Internet service providers to report tips about child pornography
• Bill C-46 – Gave police power to look for online predators
• Bill C-34 – Strengthened the National Sex Offender Registry and the National DNA Data Bank
The Conservatives claim to be “Limiting Pardons for Serious Crimes,” but when the Conservative government reviewed pardons in 2006, they took no action. Only when it emerged that sex offender Graham James had received a pardon – and that Karla Homolka was eligible for one – did the Conservatives pay any attention to this issue.
The Conservatives say they are “Toughening Sentences for Gun Crimes,” and yet they spared no expense in their campaign to kill the life-saving national gun registry against the advice of police, victims groups, women’s advocates and the majority of Canadians.
