Barsdamian
Scholar
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2009
- Messages
- 71
I was drawn into a debate about this topic with a group of volunteers I sometimes work with on drug policy issues. I am curious to hear others thoughts on the question.
This came up as we are organizing opposition to Canada's bill C-15 which is a bill to amend the controlled substances act to stiffen penalties for drug production. This bill will introduce mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent offenses into the Canadian legal system for the first time (Legal experts correct me if I am wrong on that fact). My group is specifically concerned with the marijuana production part of the bill which can now result in a 9 month mandatory minimum for growing a single cannabis plant. That's right 9 months for growing a plant.
Its just a bad bill, plain and simple. Every expert in both drug policy and criminal justice have unanimously panned it, many of them testifying before the senate to that effect. Provinces complain that it will flood prisons and costs will soar. Every shred of evidence to be found indicates that this bill will have the opposite of its intended effect and is, in fact, the largest gift that our federal government has handed organized crime in some time as it will almost certainly drive many smaller producers out and make the business more lucrative.
In short, if there is a good argument for this bill I have yet to hear it and I've been studying it and working in opposition for over two years now.
Justice minister Rob Nicholson has been repeatedly asked to provide any data that mandatory minimum sentences have any deterrent effect on crime and he has refused. He falls back to a talking point where he states that 70% of Canadians want this bill, referring to a vague poll done by the conservatives that asked people if they thought criminals are treated too softly by the Canadian justice system.
We decided to test this by doing some of our own polling and the results are alarming but hardly surprising. Here's what we found.
-In the almost 400 people we were able to survey, almost no one had even heard of the bill by its number or name.
-When given the standard conservative party description of the bill, we found that it had broad support.
-People would express support based on the party blurb but beyond that couldn't even answer the most basic questions about what the bill actually does.
-Even more disturbingly, the vast majority couldn't even answer simple questions about the functioning of our government or how a bill gets passed.
A member of the group has also been tracking media coverage of the bill and found that over the past 2 years the bill has received scant media attention and when it did, almost 50% of newspaper articles cited inaccurate or outdated information.
Now I know this is only one bill but I have no reason to believe that Canadians' political education is any better in other areas. So here's the question that arose out of our little experiment...
Can a country whose citizens are this politically illiterate, forming their opinions from a media who can't even report on a simple piece of legislation with accuracy really meet the most stringent criteria and be considered a democracy?
Does a true democracy at least require a functioning media and at least somewhat politically literate population to function?
I'm interested to hear others views on the subject. Sorry for being so long-winded. Thanks for reading.
This came up as we are organizing opposition to Canada's bill C-15 which is a bill to amend the controlled substances act to stiffen penalties for drug production. This bill will introduce mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent offenses into the Canadian legal system for the first time (Legal experts correct me if I am wrong on that fact). My group is specifically concerned with the marijuana production part of the bill which can now result in a 9 month mandatory minimum for growing a single cannabis plant. That's right 9 months for growing a plant.
Its just a bad bill, plain and simple. Every expert in both drug policy and criminal justice have unanimously panned it, many of them testifying before the senate to that effect. Provinces complain that it will flood prisons and costs will soar. Every shred of evidence to be found indicates that this bill will have the opposite of its intended effect and is, in fact, the largest gift that our federal government has handed organized crime in some time as it will almost certainly drive many smaller producers out and make the business more lucrative.
In short, if there is a good argument for this bill I have yet to hear it and I've been studying it and working in opposition for over two years now.
Justice minister Rob Nicholson has been repeatedly asked to provide any data that mandatory minimum sentences have any deterrent effect on crime and he has refused. He falls back to a talking point where he states that 70% of Canadians want this bill, referring to a vague poll done by the conservatives that asked people if they thought criminals are treated too softly by the Canadian justice system.
We decided to test this by doing some of our own polling and the results are alarming but hardly surprising. Here's what we found.
-In the almost 400 people we were able to survey, almost no one had even heard of the bill by its number or name.
-When given the standard conservative party description of the bill, we found that it had broad support.
-People would express support based on the party blurb but beyond that couldn't even answer the most basic questions about what the bill actually does.
-Even more disturbingly, the vast majority couldn't even answer simple questions about the functioning of our government or how a bill gets passed.
A member of the group has also been tracking media coverage of the bill and found that over the past 2 years the bill has received scant media attention and when it did, almost 50% of newspaper articles cited inaccurate or outdated information.
Now I know this is only one bill but I have no reason to believe that Canadians' political education is any better in other areas. So here's the question that arose out of our little experiment...
Can a country whose citizens are this politically illiterate, forming their opinions from a media who can't even report on a simple piece of legislation with accuracy really meet the most stringent criteria and be considered a democracy?
Does a true democracy at least require a functioning media and at least somewhat politically literate population to function?
I'm interested to hear others views on the subject. Sorry for being so long-winded. Thanks for reading.
