Mandryk: Beck’s “tough of crime” plank plays off Sask. Party politics

Yes folks, an NDP leader is telling us we need to “get tough on crime” … although Saskatchewan NDP Leader Carla Beck’s tough-on-crime approach seems more about pre-campaign politics.

There again, much of what Premier Scott Moe and his government have done to address crime has also seemed to be political posturing.

It’s hardly fair to criticize Beck and the NDP for responding in kind.

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For the second consecutive day, Beck played off-wing by announcing on Friday a four-point plan “to make Saskatchewan communities safer.”

“We used to be the place where you left your door unlocked, but under Scott Moe and the Sask. Party our province has the worst crime rates in Canada,” Beck said in her press release. “We need to get Saskatchewan out of last place on public safety and make our communities more secure. We need to get tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime. It’s time for a change.”

Hmmm? Replace Scott Moe with Justin Trudeau and Carla Beck with Pierre Poilievre and — at first blush — you might have a hard time distinguishing the rhetoric.

But past that initial hyperbole, it begins to make sense … at least, politically speaking.

Beck’s four-point plan to “make Saskatchewan safer” calls for: scrapping the Marshals Service and hiring more local police officers; investing in mental health and addictions services; going after organized crime and drug traffickers with an “Unexplained Wealth Taskforce” and protecting families, small businesses and places of worship with a “$2-million rebate program for security updates like alarms, doorbell cameras and motion sensor lights.”

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Supporters of Beck and the NDP will say it’s a social policy-oriented approach that will produced long-term benefits — a contrast from Moe’s short-term, ham-handed approach that’s failed to decelerate Saskatchewan’s rising crime statistics.

However, NDP critics will describe it as soft social policy dogma dressed up as “tough on crime” that won’t address property crimes or public safety.

Quite likely, the best Beck will get out of it her “tough on crime” plank is the ability to tell doubters the NDP does have a crime policy. Crime issues are especially important to the “rural,” “older” and “male” demographics, where, according to the latest Angus Reid Institute poll, Beck and the NDP are getting clobbered.

Also, there’s the benefit of reminding votes of the indisputable fact that crime has worsened in recent years.

But for Beck and the NDP, there’s an added benefit in underscoring that the Sask. Party’s crime solutions have been tarnished by its own politics.

The failure of Moe’s government to explain the need for Bill 70 creating the marshals service, beyond former policing and corrections minister Christine Tell’s explanation that “it’s a changing world” has never sat especially well with anyone.

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There is both an urban and a rural crime problem, and Moe’s government has likely scored some political points for its tougher trespassing legislation that flowed from the divisive Gerald Stanley acquittal in the Colton Boushie killing.

But the notion that the next step should have been the creation of a provincial police force that either duplicates or replaces the work of the RCMP is not flying. As noted by the NDP, the RCMP and 100 municipalities in the province are calling on the government to halt the marshals service.

The topper for the NDP now seems to be confirmation of long-held suspicions that there was politics behind the creation of the marshals service.

The NDP were quick to cite Speaker Randy Weekes’s recent interview in which he claimed influential Trade Minister Jeremy Harrison insisted on Bill 70 because of an alleged vendetta he had with legislative security staff.

So while taking on crime may or may not address any perception that the NDP is weak on crime, it might accomplish something else: It allows the NDP to point out another questionable governance choice by the Sask. Party government — one in which there’s reason to think it’s been playing politics instead of seriously developing solutions to a problem.

Mandryk is the political columnist for the Regina Leader-Post and the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.

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