As Canadian crime stats “skyrocket” year-over-year, the Liberal government’s approach to crime has “demonstrably failed” and is making Canadians less safe, the Conservatives claim.
Rob Moore, the Conservative shadow minister, told True North in an interview Wednesday that Canadians feel less safe than they did before Justin Trudeau.
“When people are feeling less safe, it’s because Canadians are less safe under this government,” he said.
“These (stats) are the result of deliberate actions taken by the government in legislation that have created a catch and release (system), which means that in spite of the best work of police to capture someone, our justice system is releasing those individuals back onto the street to re-offend.”
Since Justin Trudeau took office in 2015, violent crime has increased across Canada by almost 40%, homicides are up by 43% and gang-related murders are up by 108%, according to Stats Canada data from 2022.
Despite Trudeau’s gun bans, violent gun crime is up by 101% since he took office. There has been a year-over-year increase in crime for the last four years.
According to a Leger poll in Apr. 2023, 32% of Canadians said crime and violence had gotten much worse since before the pandemic, while another 32% said it had gotten “a little worse.”
Almost two-thirds of those polled reported they feel much less safe than they did before 2020.
Under the previous Conservative government, which was voted out in 2015, crime was on the decline.
Moore said Bill C-75, which became law in 2019, and Bill C-5, which was passed in 2022, contributed to “skyrocketing” crime rates, along with an “unwillingness to listen to police and victims” are largely to blame for the “skyrocketing” crime rates.
The two bills have been criticized by the Conservatives as being “soft on crime” for repealing mandatory minimum sentences and making bail easier for offenders to get.
“So we’re seeing individuals who should not be on the street out on bail. And the Toronto police have identified over the last several years individuals who were on bail for a firearms crime, being arrested and charged again for another firearms crime and getting bail again,” Moore said. “It’s simply a revolving door of catch and release and it’s putting Canadians at risk.”
Moore criticized a case from earlier this week in which a repeat offender out on bail stabbed a Toronto police officer.
Moore’s problem with Bill C-5 is that it allows house arrest for crimes such as sexual assault, kidnapping, human trafficking and auto theft.
“It allows individuals who commit those serious crimes to serve their sentence from the comfort of their home in their communities, which is leading to those individuals committing crimes while on house arrest,” Moore said.
He said people on house arrest have rules they are supposed to be following, but police do not have the resources to monitor everyone.
“If we want someone to be out of the community and keep the community safe from crime, there’s a reason we have jails,” he said. “It’s for those individuals, those repeat offenders who have proven that they are going to re-victimize Canadians when they’re back on the street.”
Bill C-5 also eliminated mandatory jail time for firearms offences such as robbery with a firearm, extortion with a firearm, and using a gun in the commission of an offence.
Moore took aim at what he characterized as the Liberals’ position of “allowing people to get bail that wouldn’t have otherwise got bail, that somehow that would create a safer country.”
“In fact, the evidence is in now. We have empirical evidence after eight years of Liberal government, just the opposite is true,” Moore said.