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Criminal Justice Policy during the Harper Era: Private Member’s Bills, Penal Populism, and the Criminal Code of Canada

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 December 2017

James B. Kelly  and
Kate Puddister
James B. Kelly
Affiliation:
Professor Department of Political ScienceConcordia Universityjames.kelly@concordia.ca
Kate Puddister
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor Department of Political ScienceUniversity of Guelphkpuddist@uoguelph.ca
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Abstract

During the 2015 Maclean’s election debate, Stephen Harper commented, “we have more private member’s legislation that has gone through Parliament under this government than multiple governments before us.” This statement is borne out by empirical evidence: more private member’s bills (PMBs) have become law during Harper’s time in government, compared with most previous parliaments. However, PMBs are subject to less analysis than government bills and do not receive legal scrutiny by the Department of Justice, potentially implicating the protection of rights. Moreover, while one might assume that PMBs concern innocuous local and/or specialized interests, many Harper era PMBs effect substantive legal change to national issues like criminal justice policy. This paper examines the law and order trend in PMBs and addresses the following: why would the PMO under Stephen Harper, noted for its centralized control over all aspects of public policy, permit backbench MPs a role in criminal justice policy, through PMBs?

Résumé

Durant le débat électoral organisé par le magazine Maclean’s en 2015, Stephen Harper a déclaré : « Plus de projets de loi d’initiative parlementaire ont été soumis au Parlement pendant notre gouvernement que pendant bien d’autres gouvernements avant nous. » Cette déclaration se base sur une évidence empirique. Effectivement, un nombre plus important de projets de loi d’initiative parlementaire ont éventuellement eu force de loi durant le gouvernement de Stephen Harper comparativement aux gouvernements antérieurs. Toutefois, il faut savoir que ce type de projets de loi n’est pas assujetti à des analyses aussi poussées que les projets de loi du gouvernement. De plus, les projets de loi d’initiative parlementaire ne subissent pas non plus l’examen juridique approfondi du ministère de la Justice, lequel tient compte de la protection des droits. Par ailleurs, on présume souvent que les projets de loi d’initiative parlementaire portent sur des questions pointues et anodines, alors qu’en réalité, plusieurs de ces projets de loi apportent des changements substantifs à l’égard de questions pouvant avoir des répercussions majeures à l’échelle nationale, comme par exemple, les politiques en matière de justice pénale. Durant l’ère Harper, le nombre de projets de loi d’initiative parlementaire a augmenté considérablement. Le présent article se penche sur la tendance en matière de loi et d’ordre en ce qui concerne les projets de loi d’initiative parlementaire et tente de répondre à la question suivante : pourquoi le cabinet du premier ministre Stephen Harper, connu pour son contrôle centralisé sur tous les aspects des politiques publiques, a permis à de simples députés de jouer un rôle crucial dans l’élaboration des politiques en matière de justice pénale par l’entremise des projets de loi d’initiative parlementaire?

Keywords

criminal justice policyHarper erapenal populismcriminal justice reformparliamentlegislative studiesprivate member’s billspolitiques en matière de justice pénaleère Harper« populisme pénal »réforme de la justice pénaleParlementétudes législativesprojets de loi d’initiative parlementaire
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Law and Society / La Revue Canadienne Droit et Société , Volume 32 , Issue 3 , December 2017 , pp. 391 - 415
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Law and Society Association / Association Canadienne Droit et Société 2017 

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References

1 Bill C-311 was originally introduced by Jack Layton as a private member’s bill in 2006 and was reintroduced by Bruce Hyer in 2009 before he left the NDP caucus in 2012. After a brief stint as an Independent, the Speaker of the House of Commons would recognize Hyer as the second Green Party MP in 2013.

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25 Indeed, the Supreme Court has recently struck down two mandatory minimums introduced by the Harper ministry in R v. Nur (2015) and R v. Lloyd (2016).

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31 We reviewed all criminal justice policy bills passed as government bills by the Chrétien and Martin governments (35th to 38th Parliaments) and compared their titles with criminal justice policy bills passed by the Harper government. The use of neutral titles for government bills is a continuation of past practices that was abandoned by the Harper Conservatives.

32 In some instances, the names of the bills were also misleading, and at times, the titles did not accurately reflect the intended effect of the bill. For example, the proposed Bill C-53 “Life Means Life” appears to convey that Canada does not already have life sentences, when this is simply incorrect. We thank an attentive reviewer for reminding us of this important point.

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