TORONTO - The federal minority Conservative government's efforts to clamp down on the gun violence plaguing some of Canada's big-city streets are being thwarted by the Liberal-dominated Senate, the country's justice minister complained Tuesday.
In an interview, Rob Nicholson said keeping people accused of gun crimes behind bars pending trial and raising minimum jail terms for gun-related offences are part of an "extensive" crime agenda that he says is being stymied by Liberal senators.
"The Liberals talk out of both sides of their mouth," Nicholson told The Canadian Press from his riding in Niagara Falls, Ont.
"They say, when it's to their advantage during elections, that they're tough on crime, but where is the support when we're bringing forward these pieces of legislation?"
Despite the opposition, Nicholson said the government would press ahead with its law-and-order agenda, calling the weekend death of an 11-year-old Toronto boy caught in a gang shootout - one of several recent gun killings across Canada - a tragedy.
Liberal justice critic Marlene Jennings fired back at Nicholson, saying it was the government itself that previously delayed moving on its own legislation.
The result is now a backlog in the Senate, she said.
"Not only is he the hypocrite, he thinks he can get away with cheap shots on the basis that most people won't know what the facts are," Jennings said from Ottawa.
After some vicious political wrangling, the House of Commons passed Bill C-10, which would increase mandatory minimum sentences for gun crimes - in some cases to five years for a first offence.
Also passed was Bill C-35, which puts the onus on a suspect charged with gun-related crimes to show why bail should be granted. Normally, the Crown is required to show why an accused should be kept behind bars.
The legislation has come under fierce criticism from criminal lawyers, civil libertarians and prisoner advocates, who argue they take away a judge's sentencing discretion, will affect minorities disproportionately, and may exacerbate the problem.
While the Liberals previously offered to fast-track Bill C-35, critics complain it infringes on the basic presumption of innocence and say courts deny bail to those who pose a threat.
Both bills remain before the Senate.
Irvin Waller, director of the Institute for the Prevention of Crime at the University of Ottawa, called the political wrangling moot because the parties largely agree on tougher sentences.
"The debate we've seen about minimum penalties for people caught in possession of handguns misses the main point," Waller said.
Smart, aggressive policing combined with community mobilization can have "spectacular results," as a successful program in Boston in the mid-1990s showed, he said.
Nicholson rejected complaints from Ontario politicians that the federal government has gone soft on crime by loosening the national gun registry.
"Cracking down on, or taking guns away from, duck hunters and antique collectors and sports shooters doesn't solve the urban gun-crime problem," he said.
Despite statistics that show violent crime on the decline, gunfire has been erupting on city streets with alarming frequency.
Last Saturday afternoon, a 37-year-old man was shot and left to die on a residential street in Halifax, while gunfire erupted outside a nightclub in Winnipeg in the early hours of Sunday, leaving four wounded.
In Toronto, Jordan Manners, 15, was shot dead at his high school two months ago, while 19-year-old Jose Hierro-Saez was killed last month in a gun fight that erupted while children enjoyed the sunshine in their neighbourhood.
Nicholson said in the coming months, the government will get tough on young offenders and implement a "comprehensive" anti-drug strategy, although he offered no details.
