CRIME CHANGE STARTS WITH YOUR VOTE

On Monday, 15-year-old Jane Creba was murdered, and six others
wounded, while shopping in downtown Toronto.

Yet on Tuesday, it was back to business as usual in our criminal
justice system, as a suspected drug dealer accused of first-degree
murder was awarded bail by an appeals court judge.

As York Police Chief Armand LaBarge, speaking for the Ontario
Association of Chiefs of Police, put it: "Getting bail on first-degree
murder is so frustrating (for law enforcers). It's incredible, just
after the Yonge St. shootings ..." It's not only incredible. It's
infuriating. It's frightening.

What can we do when politicians at all levels of government -- and far
too many judges -- simply won't listen, death after death, outrage
after outrage?

The public wants this threat to our safety dealt with now. More cops.
Tougher sentencing, especially for those who use guns in committing
crime. No bail. No plea bargains. No parole.

No three-for-one deals on sentencing for time spent in custody
awaiting trial. No more excuses.

But before any of that can happen, we need to rid ourselves of a bevy
of politically correct leaders, starting with Prime Minister Paul Martin.

What else is there to say about a "leader" whose first instinct, after
expressing sympathy for the victims of Monday's shootings, was to
suggest it was society's "exclusion" of the shooters that led to the
crime? Even worse, this is the almost universal attitude of our elites
- -- including far too many MPs, MPPs, judges, lawyers, academics and
pundits.

A handful of politicians do seem to be getting it, finally. Ontario
Conservative Leader John Tory, for example, has proposed a series of
initiatives which combine serious strategies for fighting gun crime
with realistic programs to help keep at-risk youths in school and in
the workforce over the long term.

Yesterday, Premier Dalton McGuinty echoed many of those proposals in a
letter demanding all federal leaders endorse tougher mandatory
sentences for gun crime (and, alas, Martin's goofy handgun ban).

Even Sheila Ward, the left-wing chair of the Toronto District School
Board, backed a 10-year, no-parole sentence for criminal use of a firearm.

But McGuinty, Tory and Ward can't rewrite the Criminal Code. And if we
reward Martin and the Liberals with another win in this election,
neither will they. No matter what feel-good promises they make.