Harpers first test of his new house of ideology

The reformatories will be reintroducing their ideological crime bill to eliminate the faint hope clause for convicted murderers via the Senate.

Currently, the punishment for first-degree murder is a life sentence with no parole for at least 25 years, and for second-degree murder, a life sentence with no parole for a minimum of 10 years and a maximum of 25.

However the "faint hope clause" which the reformatories want to eliminate allows those convicted of murder to apply for an early parole after they've served 15 years.

It is a not a cake walk to a fast track parole. Their application has to be reviewed and approved by a judge, with input from Corrections Canada and the justice minister, before it could reach a parole jury for consideration. Those convicted of multiple murders are not eligible.

Of course we have no idea of how many murderers there are and how many receive early paroles and of those how many are not truly rehabilitated which is one of the purposes of the faint hope clause. Those would be considered facts and facts play a small part with a government that operates on ideology.

This is the second time for this crime bill, with the first dying with Harper's second prorogation (the one we seemed to get upset about), however it is the first bill that Harper will be introducing via his newly seeded senate.

Presenting the bill via the Senate bypasses parliament for the first, second and third readings as well as any committee hearings. In other words our elected members of parliament will have no input into questioning the need for the bill, or the wording of the bill and will only have one opportunity to either approve or object.

Critics believe that the bill should be rejected on merit. The faint hope clause serves a purpose that increases the desire to rehabilitate. Without it our prisons become less safe and fewer individuals turn their lives around. In fact it produces more hardened criminals when the are finally released. But again that is just the theory of critics as we have no facts.

However the bill should be rejected because Harper is bypassing our elected representatives. It is further abuse of our parliamentary democracy.

Law and order must be polling well for the reformatories and this bill may be designed to demonstrate that the obstructionist opposition is weak on crime and further justify Harper's need for a majority. It will at least be a test for his new hand picked senate.

Hopefully there remains enough sober thought in the senate to get some of the facts on the table before the new members pass the bill, as they have been instructed. At least our elected members of parliament will then have some basis to reject it for what I tend to believe it is, radical right wing bull shit.

Reference the CBC