The police pleas for bail reform that fall on deaf Liberal ears

Last week, in the hours after Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree assured Question Period that his gun confiscation plan was about “ensuring that our streets are safer,” police told a Commons committee just how useless that would be.

And that about sums up how fixing the justice system is going right now. As the person with actual power to improve public safety indulges in an expensive piñata party to beat the largely non-criminal guns out of the possession of law-abiding owners, police are on the side, pleading for basic resources. Meanwhile, the perspective from the front lines of the bail courts is nowhere to be seen.

Last Thursday, the presidents of three of Canada’s most consequential police unions were in Ottawa to tell the Commons justice committee about bail and sentenci