Left Wing Brain Cramp
September 11, 2005
Left-wing brain cramp
By LORRIE GOLDSTEIN
Have you noticed the simple-minded way in which this summer's outburst of guns and gang violence in Toronto has already been explained away by our liberal intelligentsia?
They've argued, ad nauseam, that this crime wave has nothing at all to do with our ridiculously lax criminal justice system.
Rather, we're assured, it has everything to do with former Ontario premier Mike Harris' cuts to welfare and social programs from 1995 to 2002 -- 2003 if you throw in Ernie Eves.
Really? Okay, if that's true, then why did Statistics Canada just finish reporting in July that the Greater Toronto Area had the lowest crime rate of any major Canadian city in 2004?
Not that I believe those figures, or that they in any way reflect the modern-day reality of Toronto. But I don't have to. It's the liberal intelligentsia -- the same folks now yelling that street crime is all Harris' fault -- who usually wave around these "crime is down" stats whenever Canadians complain about lax laws.
And since they're the ones defending those stats, they should have to account for them. So, c'mon, boys and girls. You know who you are at the Star and the Globe, along with the left-wing academics you're always quoting on this issue. Explain yourselves.
Your theory, which you all seem to have simply pulled out of your collective behinds, is that Harris' cuts to social spending and his Safe Schools Act -- which you argue contributes to violence by expelling troubled students without providing any educational alternatives -- led to this summer's violence in Toronto.
Alrighty. Then why did the Toronto area crime rate, at least according to StatsCan, drop by 8.6% last year, immediately following eight years (1995 to 2003) of Harris' so-called crime-spawning policies? Why did Ontario have the lowest overall crime rate in the country last year (with a 5% reduction) as well as in 2003? Why, in 2003, when Canada's crime rate rose by 6%, was Ontario one of only two places where it remained stable?
Based on these stats, one could more credibly argue that Harris' policies of getting tough on school thugs and pushing people to get off welfare and into the workforce lowered crime.
That said, I'm not arguing poverty doesn't affect the crime rate.
But people can't just make up two-bit theories about this summer's crime wave being Harris' fault while simultaneously ignoring crime stats they play up in any other context. All that reveals is that they didn't like Harris' policies to begin with.
Besides, don't any of these know-it-alls remember Pierre Trudeau's so-called "Just Society," in which social spending exploded as governments across Canada bought into the idea we could solve all of society's ills by throwing tax money at them?
So what happened to the crime rate during all those years -- the 1960s, 70s, 80s? Well, it also exploded (oops), rising steadily until 1991, when it peaked and then began to drop, slowly, until two years ago, when it plateaued. So, did increased social spending, far from lowering the crime rate, actually increase it?
Was it all Trudeau's fault? Or are the real reasons that crime goes up and down more complex than any one policy or person?
Some experts argue, for example, that the crime rate exploded in the '60s mainly due to demographics. That is, as the huge baby boom generation entered its teen years -- especially young males who tend to commit a disproportionate amount of crime.
The danger of the left's glib "it's all Harris' fault" rhetoric is that it will lead to hysterical demands for more indiscriminate "social spending" (just wait until the annual grants circus at Toronto City Hall this year) to "fight crime". The point is not that there should be no social spending to help combat crime. But it has to be effective , not just more of the failed policies of the past.
Sadly, in the current climate, taxpayers will have no way of knowing whether they're getting value for money, or simply being ripped off by professional grant getters and naive bureaucrats eager to grab as much public funding as possible for their pet social programs from politically correct, soft-on-crime politicians. Which these days, pretty much describes everyone in charge at City Hall, Queen's Park and Parliament Hill.
Left-wing brain cramp
By LORRIE GOLDSTEIN
Have you noticed the simple-minded way in which this summer's outburst of guns and gang violence in Toronto has already been explained away by our liberal intelligentsia?
They've argued, ad nauseam, that this crime wave has nothing at all to do with our ridiculously lax criminal justice system.
Rather, we're assured, it has everything to do with former Ontario premier Mike Harris' cuts to welfare and social programs from 1995 to 2002 -- 2003 if you throw in Ernie Eves.
Really? Okay, if that's true, then why did Statistics Canada just finish reporting in July that the Greater Toronto Area had the lowest crime rate of any major Canadian city in 2004?
Not that I believe those figures, or that they in any way reflect the modern-day reality of Toronto. But I don't have to. It's the liberal intelligentsia -- the same folks now yelling that street crime is all Harris' fault -- who usually wave around these "crime is down" stats whenever Canadians complain about lax laws.
And since they're the ones defending those stats, they should have to account for them. So, c'mon, boys and girls. You know who you are at the Star and the Globe, along with the left-wing academics you're always quoting on this issue. Explain yourselves.
Your theory, which you all seem to have simply pulled out of your collective behinds, is that Harris' cuts to social spending and his Safe Schools Act -- which you argue contributes to violence by expelling troubled students without providing any educational alternatives -- led to this summer's violence in Toronto.
Alrighty. Then why did the Toronto area crime rate, at least according to StatsCan, drop by 8.6% last year, immediately following eight years (1995 to 2003) of Harris' so-called crime-spawning policies? Why did Ontario have the lowest overall crime rate in the country last year (with a 5% reduction) as well as in 2003? Why, in 2003, when Canada's crime rate rose by 6%, was Ontario one of only two places where it remained stable?
Based on these stats, one could more credibly argue that Harris' policies of getting tough on school thugs and pushing people to get off welfare and into the workforce lowered crime.
That said, I'm not arguing poverty doesn't affect the crime rate.
But people can't just make up two-bit theories about this summer's crime wave being Harris' fault while simultaneously ignoring crime stats they play up in any other context. All that reveals is that they didn't like Harris' policies to begin with.
Besides, don't any of these know-it-alls remember Pierre Trudeau's so-called "Just Society," in which social spending exploded as governments across Canada bought into the idea we could solve all of society's ills by throwing tax money at them?
So what happened to the crime rate during all those years -- the 1960s, 70s, 80s? Well, it also exploded (oops), rising steadily until 1991, when it peaked and then began to drop, slowly, until two years ago, when it plateaued. So, did increased social spending, far from lowering the crime rate, actually increase it?
Was it all Trudeau's fault? Or are the real reasons that crime goes up and down more complex than any one policy or person?
Some experts argue, for example, that the crime rate exploded in the '60s mainly due to demographics. That is, as the huge baby boom generation entered its teen years -- especially young males who tend to commit a disproportionate amount of crime.
The danger of the left's glib "it's all Harris' fault" rhetoric is that it will lead to hysterical demands for more indiscriminate "social spending" (just wait until the annual grants circus at Toronto City Hall this year) to "fight crime". The point is not that there should be no social spending to help combat crime. But it has to be effective , not just more of the failed policies of the past.
Sadly, in the current climate, taxpayers will have no way of knowing whether they're getting value for money, or simply being ripped off by professional grant getters and naive bureaucrats eager to grab as much public funding as possible for their pet social programs from politically correct, soft-on-crime politicians. Which these days, pretty much describes everyone in charge at City Hall, Queen's Park and Parliament Hill.
posted by Gerry Surtees at Monday, September 12, 2005
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