NDP unveils ‘tough on crime’ platform

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This article was published 18/08/2023 (1138 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba NDP Leader Wab Kinew unveiled his party’s election platform on crime on Thursday, pledging to undertake bail reform, target drug traffickers, help Manitobans pay for security features at their homes, hire mental health workers to assist police and end homelessness.

The announcement came one day after Kinew delivered a speech at Canadian Mennonite University providing some hints about what his party would do about crime and addressing his own experiences with the justice system years ago.

Like Wednesday’s speech, Kinew also made the case that despite recent tough on crime announcements made by the governing Progressive Conservatives, their record in power shows they’ve been anything but.

By comparison, he said his party would be not just tough on crime but tough on the causes of crime.

If elected this October, Kinew said the NDP would implement the National Police Federation’s recommendations for reforming bail.

In a release last month, the federation recommended the use of data driven decisions on bail, strengthening post-bail release monitoring, establishing qualification standards for justices of the peace tasked presiding over bail hearings and creating alternatives to monetary bail deposits among other measures.

To target drug traffickers, Kinew said the NDP would bring in an “unexplained wealth act” to help police investigate how certain people acquired assets over a certain value.

“If you’re a gangster driving a $100,000 car, we’re going to ask how you paid for that,” Kinew said. “And if you’re using it as a way to flaunt the wealth you gain by bringing toxic drugs into our communities, we are going to hold you accountable.”

After Kinew’s Wednesday’s speech, where he first referenced the unexplained wealth act, Justice Minister and Steinbach Progressive Conservative MLA Kelvin Goertzen said his government has already been targeting those individuals under proceeds of crime legislation.

Asked about that on Thursday, Kinew said his party’s plan would be a more proactive approach.

“Everything that the PCs have currently implemented is something that can be used around forfeitures and seizures after a case is being prosecuted,” Kinew said. “

He accused Premier Heather Stefanson and former Premier Brian Pallister as having been soft on drug dealers and hard on people with addictions during their seven years in office.

To help small businesses and homeowners feel safer, Kinew said an NDP government would create a program offering rebates of up to $300 for the installation of cameras, motion sensors and other security measures.

An NDP government, he said, would hire 100 mental health workers to assist police services across the province to help people in crisis and free up sworn officers to focus on things like violence and property damage.

Asked how these workers would be allocated, Kinew said Brandon and Westman would receive its fair share as would police forces that operate on reserves.

The NDP’s final crime plank was to promising to end chronic homelessness within two terms of being elected.

“When Manitobans see people living in bus shelters or underneath bridges, they know that we can do better,” Kinew said. “This is not just an issue downtown, this is an issue that has spilled into the suburbs and it’s extended into rural communities. We know that the homelessness crisis and crime are connected.”

He said an NDP government would implement a model of tackling homelessness that was created in Winnipeg but proven to work in Houston, Texas that will connect people experiencing homelessness with community organizations to identify housing opportunities.

To make these measures a success, the NDP leader said the province would need to work with municipal, rural, First Nations and law enforcement groups to ensure the right protocols are in place.

In a statement sent via email, Goertzen expressed incredulity at the NDP’s platform. The email stated that Kinew and the NDP voted against this year’s provincial budget, which contained measures meant to increase funding for public safety and police agencies, mental health initiatives and crisis interventions, a plan to tackle homelessness.

“It’s astonishing that the NDP is making announcements on things our PC Team has already done,” the statement read. “The NDP voted against these very things in Budget 2023. Does Wab Kinew have any of his own ideas?”

The email also said the Progressive Conservatives have been leading the country in advocating for bail reform and that their government’s approach to criminal property forfeiture has been successful enough that Saskatchewan has moved forward with a similar model.

More details on the Tories’ crime platform will be released closer to the election, the email said.

Manitoba Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont said in a statement that neither Kinew nor Stefanson “have any credibility when it comes to protecting the victims of crime.”

“While Stefanson and the PCs are refusing to fund an investigation to search for the bodies of murder victims in a landfill, Wab Kinew and the NDP are accusing they very people they say they’ll stand up for – people who are homeless, poor, or who have addictions, of being criminals,” Lamont’s statement read.

“Poverty is not a crime, but it is certainly a crime the way the NDP treated vulnerable people while they were in government. This announcement shows nothing has changed.”

Reached by phone, Brandon University sociology professor Christopher Schneider, who has written extensively on policing and justice, said he was disappointed that the NDP was taking this approach.

“It seems to be from my brief scan over what the PCs and NDP are saying is that the NDP is taking a page from the Conservatives in terms of adopting this tough on crime approach to, I think, appease the conservative voter base to try to get votes,” Schneider said.

While Kinew said on Wednesday that a “tough love” approach helped him get his life back on track, Schneider said he should understand the havoc that a tough on crime approach has caused for others.

“It may have worked personally for Wab Kinew, but the data and evidence is very clear that tough on crime has not worked for Indigenous communities across Canada, let alone in Manitoba.”

Schneider added that both major parties seem more concerned with continuing the regular election cycle of blaming each other rather than addressing the root causes of crime.

With the Manitoba NDP and Progressive Conservatives pointing the finger at each other for past mistakes, that could leave an opening for other parties like the Liberals who haven’t been in power recently according to Brandon University political science professor Kelly Saunders.

“If the Conservatives have dirty hands on this issue, whether it’s the state of health care or crime, certainly the NDP is no better when they’ve been in government,” Saunders said. “To not have been in power means that you do have a clean record … because you haven’t been tried and tested yet.”

On the other hand, it could be a hard sell to some voters to support a party that hasn’t been in office since the 1950s.

She added that while it’s fair game for parties to critique the actions of their rivals, where they fall down is they too often don’t back those critiques up by establishing themselves as a credible alternative.

“I think that’s what voters are hungry for,” she said. “They get tired when they see parties simply point at the others and saying ‘you’re to blame’ … don’t just blame the other guy, tell me what you’re prepared to do yourself.”

» The Brandon Sun