Stephen Harper: Pay No Attention To The Stats Can Man Behind The Curtain

The other day I wrote about the fact that statistics show serious crime in Canada to be at a 40-year-low. Despite this, of course, the Harper Government is marching headlong in its pursuit of measures to combat crime, including, of course, the building of super prisons that we neither need nor can afford.

In today's Globe, Jeffrey Simpson, in an incisive column entitled Tories judge evidence of falling rates inadmissible, explains why such statistics have no impact on our Conservative overlords. If you get a few moments, check it out.

Canada’s crime rate at lowest level in almost 40 years: StatsCan

Thus reads the headline in a story posted online by The Globe and Mail.

Amongst the latest Statistics Canada findings, the following facts are worth noting:

There were 554 homicides in 2010, down 56 from the year before. The decline in the homicide rate was largely driven by a decrease in British Columbia, where the rate hit an all-time low.
There were 693 attempted murders last year, down from 801 in 2009. This resulted in the lowest level in more than 30 years.

Nearly 93,000 vehicles were reported stolen last year, representing a 15 per cent drop and continuing a downward trend that started in the mid-1990s.

Nearly 153,000 youth between the ages of 12 and 17 were accused of a crime in 2010, almost 15,000 fewer than a year earlier. The youth crime rate declined by 7 per cent.

Three cities had increases in their crime severity index, which measures the seriousness of crimes: St. John’s, Sudbury, Ont., and Peterborough, Ont. The cities with the lowest crime severity indexes were Guelph, Ont., Quebec City, Toronto and Ottawa.

Of course, before we make the mistake of feeling reasonably safe, I suspect the Harper regime will remind us of the 'fact' of unreported crime lurking beneath the statistics like a great white shark trolling offshore for the unsuspecting - that is, if they even bother to comment after having achieved a majority in the last election with their wealth of scare tactics.

The Sky is Falling (according to the Macdonald-Laurier Institute)

Described by John Ibbitson as an Ottawa-based think tank, The MacDonald-Laurier Institute insists that serious crime is on the rise, notwithstanding the fact that Statistics Canada's data show the opposite.

Claiming some sort of statistical legerdemain on the part of a venerable organization that has, at least until the abolition of the long form census, commanded world-wide respect for the integrity of its work, the Institute assures us, amongst other things, that there is widespread underreporting of crime. (Hmm, would this be similar to Donald Rumsfeld's 'known unknowns'?)

This, the latest in a series of assaults on data and logic, no doubt engineered to help the Harper Government in its wasteful expenditures of prison expansions, is once more a reminder of the danger that would accrue to our country should the electorate ever hand a majority government to the Harper buffoons.

Is There a Federal Prison in Your Future?

Contemplating any petty crime or vandalism in the near future? I would strongly suggest that you abandon such anti-social considerations, especially given the Globe and Mail's amplification of Treasure Board President Stockwell Day's comments during yesterday's puzzling press conference.

You may recall his assertion that statistics showing significant declines in crime rates are misleading, given the number of crimes that go unreported. While it is a little hard for me to get my head around the concept of statistics for unreported transgressions, (almost as difficult as understanding the justification for spending $9 billion for new prisons to contain this phantom explosion of crime), in today's paper Day explains that voluntary surveys establish these crimes as fact. There seem to be only two problems with his explanation: the last survey of this nature was done in 2004, and in comparing it to the previous one done in 1999, there was no increase of unreported violent crime, only a small rise in unreported vandalism and petty theft.

With the upcoming multi-billion dollar expenditure for new federal prisons, the Conservatives are sending a very clear and powerful message: steal your neighbour's hedgeclippers or take a spray can to a wall, and you'll feel the full weight of the law.

Stockwell Day's Press Conference.

A friend just sent along this You Tube video that, I think, speaks for itself.

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The Need for Critical Thinking

While Prime Minister Harper has kept a decidedly low profile this summer, Treasury Board President Stockwell Day did surface long enough for a press conference in Ottawa today to talk about 'how well' the government's Economic Action Plan is working for Canadians. Unfortunately for him, reporters had other things on their mind, including questions about the elimination of the mandatory long census form and his assertion that crime statistics are misleading, that there are many crimes that Candians are not reporting. For a change, it sounds like journalists were thinking critically and asking the hard questions that challenge the blithe claims that politicians are only too happy to make

You can read the full story here.