PUBLICATION:        The Toronto Sun 

DATE:                         2004.03.05

EDITION:                    Final 

SECTION:                  Editorial/Opinion 

PAGE:                         14 

COLUMN:                  Editorial 

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TOO LIBERAL ON CRIME

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They say timing is everything, and that's certainly true of Toronto's latest spate of gun violence.

The timing is significant not because this week's shootings happened during the week (they most often occur on weekends), but because they made news on the very day Toronto Mayor David Miller and Police Chief Julian Fantino met with local federal Liberal MPs to talk about the city's growing crime problem.

Fantino has been calling for months for all those Liberals we slavishly send to Ottawa to make a difference - namely by imposing strict new sentences against anyone who uses a gun in crime. (E.g., five years for pulling a gun, 10 years for shooting someone. No exceptions.)

This should be a no-brainer. Indeed, it's hard to imagine how anyone who lives in this city and has seen innocent lives lost to random, rampant gunfire could not be on board.

But incredibly, these Grits still don't get it.

Human Resources Minister Joe Volpe said the feds would rather focus on "crime prevention" programs - and he made a campaign-style announcement of $7.9 million for such programs across Ontario yesterday. He spouted the usual Liberal line about how much it costs to put people in jail and how we need to address the "root causes" of crime by building playgrounds, etc.

(Great, but we can't help noticing that the $3.5 million he gave Toronto-area crime prevention projects is a far cry from the $100 million his government gave Grit-friendly ad firms in Quebec, not to mention the $1 billion his predecessors in Human Resources lost track of in 1999.)

Meanwhile, Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty, who also met with Fantino yesterday, shrugged off demands that he do more on crime, saying: "I just don't think we should allow our minds to become gripped by crime and to become prisoners in our own community." Tell that to the people of gang-terrorized neighbourhoods, premier. You need to get a grip.

Lock up the criminals, seize their guns, stop the killing. What part of that don't these Liberals understand? And why do we elect them?

AND ANOTHER THING ...

Still with the Liberals, how ironic is it that some Ontario MPs are blaming their provincial brethren for "embarrassing" them? On a secret caucus tape obtained by The Sun, several federal Grits - fearing for their seats in the coming election - say the behaviour of their provincial "kissing cousins" has hurt their support. Bet the feeling is mutual!