View From the Legislature

People often remark that they don’t hear politicians express agreement with each other even when it is an issue that they do agree upon. Division often runs so deep in partisan politics that recognizing even obvious areas of agreement can be seen as a weakness. Personally, I believe it is important to not only seek areas of mutual agreement between political parties, but to express that agreement while offering helpful suggestions for improvement.

Last week, Manitoba’s NDP government announced that they would be keeping in place the contract that was established under the former Progressive Conservative government to have 100 electronic monitoring devices (often referred to as ankle bracelet’s), available for the courts to use on offenders who are being released on bail (awaiting trial) or on probation (following their sentence). It is worth noting that both the Progressive Conservative Party and NDP believe this is an important measure.

During my time as Minister of Justice, I approved this contract being established because of concerns that I had regarding offenders, particularly violent offenders, being released in the community awaiting trial or on probation. The technology on electronic monitoring has improved significantly over the past several years and concerns with devices being tampered with are not as great as they once were. The new devices provide 24/7 notification to law enforcement about the whereabouts of an individual who is on bail or probation. It can also notify an individual who the court has ordered that the offender stay away from that the offender is nearby. In this way, it provides proactive notification to those who may be at risk.

While it is positive that this contract has not been cut by the NDP, the reality is that electronic monitoring was always only intended to be one part of the answer to the escalation in violent crime Manitoba is experiencing. In fact, in many ways it is not even the most effective measure that can be taken.

Much of the reason that this program was seen as necessary is because federal bail laws in Canada have made it almost impossible to keep even violent repeat offenders in custody as they await trial. That is why Canadians learn about, or become victim in, many situations where a violent crime takes place by someone on bail awaiting trial.

This is why my Progressive Conservative colleagues and I helped lead a national effort to have federal bail laws changed so that those who pose a significant risk to the community, are not released on bail as so often happens now. While some progress was made to have laws changed, more needs to be done.

When Wab Kinew and the NDP were running for office, they said that they could make changes to federal bail laws themselves. Of course, those changes can only be made by the federal government. As a result, the new NDP government has not made meaningful changes to bail provisions, and they have all but stopped trying to get changes made federally to make communities safer.

The need for electronic monitoring is something there is agreement with between Manitoba’s main provincial political parties. That is positive. But until the NDP government takes the issue of bail reform seriously and recognizes that violent offenders at high risk to reoffend need jail not bail, they are only getting the answer partially correct.