Tough On Crime Is About to Get A Lot Tougher, Thanks to One Man

Julian Fantino brings his truncheon-swinging style to Ottawa.

The election of ex-OPP chief Julian Fantino to the Conservative caucus is “likely to encourage the government to engage in divisive politics and create unfounded, expensive crime policies,” speculates an editorial in the Ottawa Citizen. The government is trumpeting Fantino’s election as an endorsement of the Tories’ “tough on crime” agenda, but the Citizen says “[t]hat might be a stretch” considering Fantino won by a slim margin, and owes his victory as much to his high profile as to his politics. The Citizen might have added that basing national policy on a by-election in which 30 per cent of the people voted is hardly the epitome of democracy. The paper’s editors are concerned that the government’s crime policies already run counter to stats that show building more prisons doesn’t reduce crime, and Fantino will only exacerbate bad policy.

Fantino is “the ideal standard-bearer for Stephen Harper’s law-and-order agenda,” writes Scott Stinson in the National Post, both in the sense that he’s the perfect public face for the policies, and because “like the Conservatives, Mr. Fantino has never seemed much swayed by the evidence that suggests mandatory minimums are ineffective at reducing crime, but quite effective at increasing costs.” Fantino is likely to get a position in cabinet, and while many observers say this could set up a showdown between the outspoken ex-chief and the controlling prime minister, Stinson says Fantino’s well-publicized “two-tiered policing” during the standoff with aboriginals at Caledonia was clearly political, and evidence that he’s used to taking orders. Adding more credence to Stinson’s argument is that Fantino won the by-election by basically staying out of sight, clearly on the orders of the Conservative party.

The Post’s Keith Beardsley supports Fantino being appointed to cabinet, saying it could make for some good political theatre. “I for one would love to be a fly on the wall the first time some young staffer in the PMO calls Fantino and tells him what he can’t and can do,” he writes. A young staffer might not have any luck, but one suspects even Fantino is no match for the PM.