Stupid on Crime, Part Umpty-Two

Here's the thing about crime stats. You can squeal and lie and dismiss all you want. One stat does NOT lie. The homicide rate.

Canada’s crime rate fell again last year and is now at its lowest level in almost 40 years.

Crimes reported to police dropped 5 per cent in 2010. The decline spanned a wide range of offences, including the homicide rate, which fell by 10 per cent to a level not seen since 1966.

“Homicide is one of the few types of violent crime that almost invariably comes to the attention of police and, as such, is generally recognized as a country’s barometer of violence,” Statistics Canada said in a report released Thursday.

In addition, an index measuring the severity of crimes fell 6 per cent from 2009, reaching its lowest point since it was introduced in 1998.

The national crime rate, which has been falling steadily for the past 20 years, is now at its lowest level since 1973, Statscan said.

Because, unlike sexual assault or theft under/over or other crimes, which may be differently defined or reported, a homicide pretty well entails a dead person and dead people are hard to ignore or redefine.

There is much more uniform reporting of murder stats across jurisdictions, which is why they're preferred for international comparisons.

Here's the StatsCan report. Just about every sort of crime -- including youth crime -- is down markedly.

So what did the Stooopid on Crime Cons have to say? Here's Justice spokesthingy:

"We don't use these statistics as an excuse not to get tough on criminals," said spokeswoman Pamela Stephens.

Hoooo-kay.

But this report is throwing a spaniard into ConCrime plans:

"From the government's perspective, crime going down is probably an embarrassment," said Anthony Doob, a criminologist at the University of Toronto. "For the rest of us, it's probably a nice thing to have less crime in our community."

Doob said crime rates and punishment policy are not linked.

"The one thing we know with any kind of certainty is that (a falling crime rate) doesn't have much to do with policies related to punishment," said Doob. "Sending more people to prison may reduce the likelihood that they're committing offences while they're in prison but, if anything, it increases the likelihood that they'll commit offences after they've been released."

Why can' we have nice, productive, progressive evidence-based policies? Why, when we know the facts, know what works and what doesn't, do we ignore all that and behave stupidly? Why do we let stupid people run things?

Of all the lying, fear-mongering, venality, and just plain meanness on the civic stage at the moment, what most distresses me is the WILLFUL IGNORANCE.

We need to make courage politically desirable. Not only tell the truth, but act on it.

Should Oda go blonde?

This photograph of the Minister for International Bullying Cooperation, hiding behind her cloud of tobacco smoke (Rona Ambrose was busy elsewhere) went viral after the Odascam/Negate debacle broke in Canadian political news.

Many have noted the eerie ressemblance to Roy Orbison.

My advice to Bev Oda: lose the jet-black hair-dye. If you let it go, eventually you'll turn into a blonde because the fumes from the cigarettes you're chain-smoking will stain your hair yellow. (Ever visited a heavy smoker's den and noticed the patina of nicotine tar clinging to the walls and ceiling?) And Lord knows Stevie's HarperCons could use another diversion in the House of Commons.

Is there anyone proficient with Photoshop out there willing to show us what a blonde Oda might look like?

NOThing done about freezing Ben Ali clan assets.

The former dictator lies comatose in a hospital in Saudi Arabia, abandoned by family members who are no doubt scurrying about, secreting whatever's available of the MASSIVE fortune Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and his thugs stole from the Tunisian people.

On Monday and Tuesday, BQ MP Jean Dorion tried in vain to secure from Minister of Foreign Affairs Lawrence Cannon a clear and straight answer about the assets held in Canada by the Ben Ali cabal. For two days running, Cannon supplied Con-voluted baffle-gab in response to pointed questions from Dorion.



Then the Minister of Justice Rob Nicholson took up the empty rhetoric refrain: "Our government is prepared to assist the Government of Tunisia in any manner while respecting our laws. We will continue to work with representatives of Tunisia on this file. Obviously, we all have a stake in ensuring that justice is done for the people of Tunisia."

Yesterday BQ leader Gilles Duceppe met the Tunisian ambassador - who says he has NOT received any communication whatsoever from Cannon or Nicholson.

At the end of January, Tunisian officials asked Canada to freeze assets held by the former President Ben Ali and his family, including illegal transfers of funds abroad. Ben Ali's family owns a house in Westmount valued at over $ 2 million.

[...] in an interview with The Associated Press the Ambassador of Tunisia in Ottawa Mouldi Sakri said the minister, Lawrence Cannon, has yet to respond to the request of Tunisia [...]

Belhassen Trabelsi, brother-in-law of the deposed president, fled to Canada following the uprising in Tunisia. He has permanent resident status, but the immigration department has taken steps to withdraw his status.

Cannon has invoked Canadian laws on privacy to justify his silence on this issue while Mr. Sakri has received no communication from Canadian officials.

"The Ben Ali must be frozen before they are squandered. The Ministry of Justice in Tunisia presented two requests to the Canadian government," he said.

[...] Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe, who met yesterday with the Ambassador of Tunisia in his office on Parliament Hill, said the Harper government cannot shirk its responsibilities. [...]

"The ambassador hoped for a speedy response to his requests and at the very least a temporary freeze of assets, pending a final decision. Ben Ali family members are experts in fiscal evasion. Now they've been given plenty of time to move money to off-shore havens [...]" said Duceppe.

If the HarperCons had acted efficiently and competently, they would have bragged about it. Their evasive tactics in Question Period means neither Cannon nor Nicholson have done anything except procrastinate and put off Tunisian officials.

As fern hill said yesterday, Stevie and his bullies respect the power of money. In addition, they appear to feel ideologically synchronized with oligarchies that undermine the democratic process.

Incompetence (Part Umpty-three)

So what does an inept but crime-obsessed government do when it can't manage to spend even half the budget for victims of crime because it can't find the people to write the damn cheques?

Advertise!

The Liberals say that the government's quarterly advertising report shows that $6 million was set aside to produce and run an ad campaign directed at victims of crime. Meanwhile, the recently released Public Accounts show that lapsed funding for the Victims of Crime Initiative last year amounted to just under $4 million, or 45 per cent of available funds, said the Liberal release.

I've been seeing the glurgey ad on telly and wondering WTF?

Now I know.

Incompetence + arrogance + hypocrisy = Harper regime.

Or, maybe they were saving it for Vic (Adulterer and Aide-Knocker-Upper) Toews's victims of unreported crime.

Remember Nafta-gate?

James Fitz-Morris thinks Hillary sure does.

(A little refresher by way of Ian Brodie's -- Harpie's first of a long string of chiefs of staff -- wiki entry.)

And speaking of security and confidentiality, let's also remember those ReformaTory cabinet ministers who are to be trusted with sensitive information, whereas those evul Taliban-supporting Opposition MPs are not.

Here's Helena Guergis trying to score political points while endangering Opposition members' lives in Afghanistan.

Here's Maxime Bernier forgetting senstive NATO documents at his mobbed-up biker chick's pad.

And here's Lisa -- I'm So Sexy -- Raitt blaming her aide for leaving more sensitive documents in the ladies' loo.

Hillary Clinton remembers Nafta-gate, but will Canadian voters remember these incompetents when the time comes to vote their butts out?

Here at DJ!, we live in hope.