November 2, 2011
FOR IT BEFORE THEY WERE AGAINST IT?

VICTORIA – As they are with so many issues, Adrian Dix and the BC NDP are completely confused when it comes to how to deal with crime.

“Listening to Dix and company stridently slam federal proposals to bring in tougher sentences for violent criminals was surreal,” says Chilliwack MLA John Les. “A couple years ago, the BC NDP were supporting this government’s calls for stiffer sentences. Now they want to keep lenient sentences on the books.”

Here is what one prominent BC NDP MLA has said before in support of tougher sentences:

• “It's about politicians, the public and communities coming together and sending a message to these gutless cowards who would hold our communities hostage that we are not going to stand by and let them do that.  We are going to stop it and end it.” – Mike Farnworth, Abbotsford News, Feb 23/09
• "We certainly don't need to study crime any more, we need action." – Mike Farnworth, The Canadian Press, Feb 13/08
• "If people think that it doesn’t matter — “I’m just going to get a slap-on-the-wrist sentence” — then should we be surprised that we’re seeing people coming back on a third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh offence? And as you say, going on the bus, I mean, if people are getting tickets and they’re not paying and people learn that, then why on earth are they going to pay it?" – Mike Farnworth, CKNW, Jun 26/07

“This is the thing about the BC NDP,” says Les. “They’re all rhetoric, no action. When we talk about getting tough on crime, we mean it, and we follow through. The BC NDP is nothing but talk.”

On the topic of crime, it is worth noting the fact that the BC NDP and Kathy Corrigan, then campaigning to become MLA for Burnaby-Deer Lake, mounted a fear campaign against a proposed pre-trial centre planned for the Willingdon Lands in Burnaby – land that had been zoned for that use for years.

"Another difference between this government and the BC NDP is that we know how to work constructively with our partners at the federal level, and they don’t,” says Les. “We will continue to work with the federal government to improve safety on our streets while Adrian Dix campaigns against the very measures intended to do just that.”

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