Kinew praised for bold speech

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This article was published 17/08/2023 (756 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Brandon University political science professor said that she was struck by the boldness of NDP Leader Wab Kinew’s speech on crime and justice Wednesday morning.

“I don’t think I’ve seen a speech like this for a very, very long time,” Kelly Saunders told the Sun. “I was quite struck by the tone and tenor of it.”

Kinew, who addressed a crowd at Canadian Mennonite University, talked about his experience as an Indigenous man growing up in Manitoba and the “tough love” that helped him turn his life around.

Kinew was granted a record suspension — known as a pardon — in 2016. He had a criminal record for assaulting a taxi driver, refusing a breathalyzer sample and two counts of breaching court orders. Kinew also faced charges of domestic assault in 2003 and one count of theft under $5,000 in 2006, but those charges were stayed.

“I had a major problem with alcoholism,” Kinew said Wednesday. “I did some things that I’m not proud of.

“When I was ‘in the problem’ 20 years ago, I was held accountable by the justice system — and let me be perfectly clear here — being held accountable by the justice system was a necessary step. It forced me to confront the fact I needed to change my life, apologize and tackle my addictions.”

Saunders said that the speech was a smart strategy on the NDP’s part, as Kinew directly addressed his criminal past, which the Tories have tried to use to turn voters against him.

“It’s certainly a courageous move. A lot of politicians would have tried to continue to dodge and deflect and hope that voters would get distracted by other things,” the professor said.

Kinew called out Premier Heather Stefanson and her Progressive Conservative government for its record on crime and justice reform.

“Where Heather Stefanson has been hard on people with addictions and soft on drug traffickers, I will bring the hammer down on drug dealers and provide people living with addictions a real chance to stay alive and find a path to recovery,” Kinew said.

The NDP would crack down on drug trafficking through a new wealth act, he said. He also promised the NDP would invest in education, meal programs and recreation and cultural programs to help kids who are at risk of “going down a bad path.”

“We need to ensure that we get someone off the street when they do something bad, but that’s only the first step,” he said. “From there we need to address the addictions and trauma that are driving people to do bad things, and then we need to teach them how to live better. Most importantly we need to teach them the value of hard work and the benefits of a good job.”

Saunders said that she thought that the NDP presented an alternative approach to crime than the Tories have presented so far, adding that the NDP’s support for harm reduction strategies to deal with the opioid crisis separates them from the conservatives who have been reluctant to consider safe consumption sites.

“I think it was a way of trying to show that the Conservatives don’t own the issue of crime, number one, and number two, that their platforms on how to deal with crime really aren’t necessarily the right ones,” Saunders said.

Meanwhile, Brandon University sociology professor Christopher Schneider emphasizes that crime and the conditions that cause it are nuanced.

“The solution to eradicating crime is not an easy one,” the professor said in an interview with the Sun. “The tough on crime rhetoric is a lot of smoke and mirrors because the public are seduced by the idea that tough on crime [means] they’re going to fix everything.”

He said that addressing crime effectively would men addressing the root and systemic causes of crime, not a tough on crime “quick fix” of arresting people and putting people in prison.

“The strategies that all [politicians] have been promoting, this tough on crime rhetoric has been ineffective for decades,” he said. “Why don’t we try something new? Why don’t we have a different conversation?”

Still, Saunders said that she is curious to see how the Tories respond, given that they put a lot of effort into labeling Kinew as a criminal, she said.

“It’s going to be an election to watch for sure,” she said.

In an event in Winnipeg later that afternoon, Justice Minister Kelvin Goertzen responded to Kinew’s speech. Goertzen said that the PC government has already taken steps to address crime, including creating integrated units like the violent crime unit in the Winnipeg Police Service and the Missing Persons Unit. He said that going after individuals who profit from crime is already dealt with by the provincial proceeds of crime legislation.

“They don’t take the issue of crime and safety seriously, they want their record on crime and safety to disappear during the campaign and it won’t disappear,” he told reporters. “We’re going to talk about safety in our community even if the NDP don’t want talk about it because it is important to Manitobans.”

» gmortfield@brandonsun.com, with files from the Winnipeg Free Press

» X: @geena_mortfield