The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP) approved a resolution at its meeting earlier today that asserted the importance of the long form to police work. It reads that “ police agencies throughout Canada depend on reliable, comprehensive demographic statistical information provided by Statistics Canada to establish policing priorities and to determine policing services for their communities" and that “the long form census used by Statistics Canada is the basic tool for gathering the necessary statistical information while protecting the confidentiality of such information.”
In other words, the Harper government, by rendering the long form census impotent, are crippling the efforts of the police to reduce and stop crime. The police will no longer possess this crucial information, a tool they used to stop the crime Harper claims to want to stop also.
Perhaps more indicative is the further stance the CACP adopted on the long gun registry. They unanimously adopted a resolution calling on police leaders and officers to explain to the public and politicians the value and importance of the long gun registry.
Police across the country consult the database 11000 times per day. It is according to Chief Blair, the head of the CACP, "a tool that we need, that we use every day. And if you take it away from us, you are diminishing our capacity to keep our communities safe.”
Harper maintained today that "Canadians have been very clear they want us to spend our time and our money focusing on the criminal misuse of firearms and not going after law abiding duck hunters and farmers." The CACP, who should know about this area after all, are telling him loud and clear that if he wants to focus on public safety, he should not abolish the long gun registry. The two aren't irreconcilable. After all, the police are not putting duck hunters and farmers in prison.
Maybe Harper should listen to his partners in the war on crime. Maybe he should listen to those who actually are tough on crime, rather than to those that are blinded by ideology. Recommend this Post at Progressive Bloggers If you liked this post, please vote for my blog at Canadian Blogosphere
Oops, you guys are missing the OTHER side of the story. How convenient -
ReplyDeleteNot all frontline officers agree with the registry. Randy Kuntz, an Edmonton police officer for 22 years, surveyed 2,600 officers on the issue, and found about 2,400 want to scrap the registry.
"With the boots-meets-the-pavement type of policeman who's going to be dealing with the public every day, overwhelmingly there's no support for this registry," he told CTV's Kevin Armstrong in Edmonton. "It hasn't saved anybody."
Yeah, well, as Chief Blair said about it, it's a highly suspect push-poll (conducted by a someone who moonlights as a hunting guide, driven by his an ad in the police mag, which we haven't seen, so the respondents are self-, not randomly-selected, and we don't even know what the actual (leading?) question was).
ReplyDeleteSure, a lot of cops are just as much of gun-lovin' libertarians as some of the 'About to Go Postal' wingnuts the database is intended to help with. (Witness the incident in Manila yesterday: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/08/24/philippines-hostage-canadian-passports.html ) But that doesn't mean they have any real understanding of the true value of the registry. And even among the frontline law enforcement members of that very publication, a different poll and discussion shows far more appreciation than Kuntz lets on: 1/3rd were in favour in this poll on the public part of their fora: http://forums.blueline.ca/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=17977&start=0