Daily Archives: March 6, 2010

By Doug Draper

When it comes to the Niagara Regional Police Service and its plans for building a new police headquarters, any semblance of openness and transparency too often flies out the window for Niagara, Ontario’s regional council.

The Niagara Regional Police Service's existing headquarters in downtown St. Catharines. Photo by Doug Draper

For about the umpteenth time over the past two or three years, the doors to the regional government’s council chambers were closed to members of the media and general public this March 4 – this time for more than four hours. The doors were shut for so long that Cogeco’s Cable 10 media crew, which dutifully trains the eyes of their cameras on regional council proceedings for the public, finally packed up their gear and went home.

The optics of those doors remaining closed until members of the public finally get fed up and leave on Thursday council meeting nights are not good for a regional government that otherwise has a pretty decent record for openness.

And to swing those doors shut almost every time there is a discussion or debate over a police headquarters that would amount to one of the largest capital investment of our money the regional government is perched to make in its 40-year history is unacceptable.

The region has been drawing a curtain of secrecy around this issue for far too long now and it is about time members of the public began contacting their mayors and directly elected regional councillors and demanding some disclosure. Continue reading →

By Rob Nicholson,
Niagara Falls, Ontario MP and Canada’s Minister of Justice and Attorney General

Canadians lose faith in the criminal justice system when they feel that the punishment does not fit the crime. They have told us they want criminals – particularly violent offenders or those involved in gangs and organized crime – to serve a sentence that is proportionate to the severity of their crimes.

Niagara Falls MPP and Canadian Justice Minister Rob Nicholson

I am pleased to write that we have met those expectations in the Truth in Sentencing Act, which came into force Monday, February 22. This piece of legislation strictly limits the amount of credit granted for time served in custody prior to sentencing, thereby ensuring offenders will serve sentences that are more appropriate.

In the past, courts often applied a credit of two-to-one for time served in pre-trial custody when sentencing criminals.  In some circumstances, certain offenders even received three-for-one credit.

This awarding of extra credit lead not only to the perception that sentences were too lenient – it also lead to the reality that, all too often, criminals were being released back on our streets far too soon.

Like the majority of Canadians, our Government believed that this situation was unacceptable. So, we acted on it.  Continue reading →