As I get older and necessarily see more of political machinations – from my own municipality of Bowen Island, and on to the provincial and federal levels of government – I am struck by the similarities between politics and the worst of competitive sport.
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An excerpt from the transcript of discussions regarding The Tackling Violent Crime Act. We don’t appear to have been very convincing. The Senate passed the Bill with apparently little comment.
Senator Oliver: What does that case say about reverse onus?
Mr. Boyd: It is critical of reverse onus because of the issue of liberty.
Again, I understand what you are saying about care with respect to Charter compliance and so on, but this is really an issue of principle. As Canadians, we have traditionally not taken away individual liberty unless we discharge the traditional burden of proof in criminal cases. We should only deviate from that norm in exceptional cases.
I think the onus is on the government to make the case here. What is the data telling us about the dangerous offender provisions or, more specifically, about how these dangerous offender hearings have been conducted today? Are there 10 or 15 cases? Is there this great number of cases that we can point to to suggest that, see, courts have let very dangerous people go free? Where is the demonstrated need for this? I think we would all say we do not want to put something in place unless there is an extraordinary need to do so.
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