Whether it’s drug abuse, crime or terrorism, it seems the Conservative government would rather buy punishment by the pound than prevention by the ounce.
This is particularly apparent as Prime Minister Stephen Harper gets set to sell the Canadian people on a bigger stick for the RCMP and CSIS to wield.
New legislation, scheduled to be put before Parliament Friday, aims to prevent attacks like the Ottawa shooting that resulted in the death of Cpl. Nathan Cirillo.
The Parliament Hill attack was revolting and frightening, but what it wasn’t was a terrorist network’s well-orchestrated plot.
Michael Zehaf-Bibeau was a crack addict who drifted in and out of homeless shelters in the years before the shooting.
He never went through a real detox program or got mental health treatment. If he had, it’s hard to imagine he would’ve been moved to murder by the online babbling of an armchair extremist.
The Canadian criminal code already allows for pre-emptive arrests if there’s reasonable grounds to suspect a terrorist act is imminent.
That makes us wonder what additional powers could possibly be enacted that wouldn’t hip check due process and the rule of law.
We might all be a little safer if the federal government spent half as much time examining solutions for poverty, mental illness and addiction as they do on enhancing already enhanced security measures.
By some estimates, there are 90 potentially radicalized Muslims in Canada. On the North Shore, there are 119 homeless people.
