LILLEY: Trudeau's Black Justice plan just far-left politics

Article content

The report starts by stating that Canada’s criminal justice system was never meant to serve black Canadians but to harm them. When that’s the starting point, you know the report you are about to read is coming with a heavy political bias.

Last week the federal Department of Justice published A Roadmap for Transformative Change: Canada’s Black Justice Strategy. It amounts to a rehashing of far-left ideology on justice issues dressed up in the clothing of racial justice and equality.

Jamil Jivani, Conservative MP for Durham, a lawyer and a Black man, is quite vocal in opposing the recommendations of this strategy.

“The main problem with this Black justice strategy is that it’s only exacerbating the bad policies that the Liberal government has already brought in, and at a time where crime is going up, and Black Canadians are suffering from that increase in crime,” Jivani said in an interview on Tuesday.

Jivani calls the policies in the publication radical and is calling on the Liberal government to reject the proposals. If you read it for yourself, it will be clear that this is a highly political document pushing a radical agenda.

On page 39 the report calls for the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to be amended, “to remove all criminal penalties for possession offences of up to a 30-day supply of a controlled substance.” On the same page, the report calls for dropping whether a firearm was used or the severity of the crime at hand as a reason in determining whether bail should be granted.

Time and again, this report calls for bail to be made easier to obtain even though under the Trudeau Liberals it is the default option in all but the most extreme exceptions. That they want bail made easier to get is due to the philosophy the authors approach the criminal justice system with, it isn’t about race.

“The reality is as a Black Canadian, as a Black man, it is especially frustrating that these very radical, harmful policies are being recommended as if they’re good for Black Canadians,” Jivani said.

“When over one out of 10, over 13% of homicide victims in Canada are Black men and Black women and the idea that you would make crime worse and say that it’s good for Black people is insane.”

On the issue of sentencing, the report calls for the elimination of all mandatory minimum sentences and making conditional sentences available for all offences — that would include murder. The ultimate goal of the report is to bring about changes that make sure as few people as possible go to jail in Canada and that those already in jail are let out.

“Canada must aim to reduce the overall current rate of persons incarcerated relative to the population by 30% by 2034, and given levels of overrepresentation, incarceration rates for Black and Indigenous people must be reduced by 50% of the current rate, relative to their proportion of the population, in this time,” the report states.

Jivani points out that the push for reducing the prison population fails to consider the severity of the crimes committed or whether those involved are repeat offenders.

The authors of this report are all accomplished people with impressive resumes, yet they are clearly and heavily political all at the same time.

Taking far-left political theory and repackaging it as racial justice doesn’t mean that it’s still not far-left political theory. The authors, though, have made clear they don’t accept any criticisms.

Zilla Jones, a lawyer and one of the lead authors of the report, replied to Jivani’s criticism on X by saying her goal with this report was to change discussions about crime away from the conservative point of view.

“This is one goal of Canada’s Black Justice Strategy — to transform the conversation around the justice system from being held hostage to small-c conservative talking points people repeat without thinking, such as those below, to one that actually responds to public safety needs,” Jones said.

It’s a nice summary of her view of the current judicial system, held hostage to conservative viewpoints which are held by people who don’t think. Read her statement and tell me that this report isn’t primarily about politics.

That’s why we can expect the Liberal government to not only accept this report but embrace it and implement the policies. They are all about the politics, even if that means bad policies.

RECOMMENDED VIDEO

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

Try refreshing your browser, or
tap here to see other videos from our team.

Play Video