My colleague Brian Lilley reports on some discord — a polite way of saying yelling and screaming — within the federal cabinet about Canada's acquiescence to the U.S. request that convicted Canadian terrorist Omar Khadr be allowed to serve most of his 8-year sentence in Canada. He'll serve at least a year in the U.S., likely at his current facility at Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Station. (That's me, by the way, left, standing outside Camp 4, the facility Khadr was being held in when I toured the camp earlier this year.)
Khadr will have to apply to Canada's public safety minister, Vic Toews, for a transfer to Canada.
I wondered about the Conservative record on these applications.
The received wisdom in Ottawa's political and journalism circles is that since the Conservatives formed the government in early 2006, they planned to differentiate themselves from their predecessors — and demonstrate just how tough on crime they could be — by declining applications from Canadians sentenced to jail times in other countries who wanted to do their time in a Canadian facility. “If you do the crime there, you'll do the time there,” was the prevailing attitude.
But I've just crunched the stats, found in the most recent annual report international prison transfers, and it's not so clear that the Conservatives have, in fact, declined that many.
In other words: They appear to be as tough/soft on crime, in this respect at least, as many other governments.
Certainly, for the first three years of the Conservative administration the overall number of transferred from prisoners are down compared to the last three years of the previous Liberal administration. Meanwhile the new applications for transfer has remained fairly steady over the last five years (more on this below). That said: The Tory record on approved transfers for the last three years seems to be roughly comparable to the Liberal administrations of Jean Chretien in the 1990s. Here's the bar chart showing the total number of Canadians transferred from a jail in another country to a Canadian jail and the total of number of Canadians transferred from a U.S. jail to a Canadian jail:
It's difficult to say precisely, from the statistics Corrections Canada compiles, exactly how many applications for transfer were approved by the public safety minister in any of Stephen Harper's cabinets. (The fiscal years used for reporting purposes here end on March 31 and the Harper government was sworn in on January 26, 2006.) But let's say that the Harper government's tenure really began in fiscal 2007 (the year from April 1, 2006 to March 31, 2007). That means that, since taking office, Conservative public safety ministers (Vic Toews currently has that job but it has been Stockwell Day's and Peter Van Loan's) have approved the transfer of 359 Canadians jailed in the U.S. and abroad to do their time in Canada.
Corrections Canada reports that it can take between 6-9 months from the date an inmate applies for transfer to the decision by the minister to approve the transfer. Canada and the U.S. have four set “transfers” each year so, presumably, after the transfer is approved, the inmate waits until the next batch of inmates are transferred.
Also of some note: The efficiency with which applications for transfer are disposed of seems to have improved under the Conservatives.
Corrections Canada reports that, since 2004-05, there were between 262 and 274 applications each year from a Canadian jailed abroad to come home. Under the last two years of Liberal Paul Martin's government, nearly 350 applications were still outstanding at the end of the fiscal year and had to be carried over to the following year. The Conservatives, in their first year, have done much better clearing the paperwork with just 306 cases carried over to the next year in 2008-2009 and a low of 242 cases carried over in their first year of office.
So, does your stats crunching mean the CBC’s “Senior Investigative Correspondent” Diana Swain, Peter Mansbridge, and The National are totally full of it?
In an Oct 25/10 report on prison transfers, Peter Mansbridge introduced Swain’s report by saying the Harper government has refused many more prison transfers than under the Liberals.
“Canada-US prison transfers
October 25, 2010 News > Canada
The Harper government is approving fewer prison transfers of Canadians held in the U.S., the CBC's Diana Swain reports.”
But your stats crunching leads you to this conclusion:
“The Tory record on approved transfers for the last three years seems to be roughly comparable to the Liberal administrations of Jean Chretien in the 1990s.”
My conclusion? The CBC is indeed full of it.
Gabby I think the distinction seems to be that David is comparing actual number of transfers, which as David says looks pretty consistent with the late 90s in the Liberal years (David any chance that the graphic can be linked to in larger size, the years are pretty hard to read?).
In contrast the 'full of it' CBC report is comparing the proportion of total applications approved for return by earlier Liberal governments to the percentage of applications approved by the Conservatives. The CBC points to Government of Canada data that says that in the 1990s the percentage of applications approved for transfer was virtually 100%. Everyone who applied was allowed to serve the remainder of their sentence here.
In contrast, the CBC reports, again using GofC data, that since 2005, up to 30% of applications have been turned down. As the reports states this setting records for non-approvals for our country. Further, the current government simply did not process large number of claims allowing a backlog to form to the point where the US complained.
So comparing the CBC report to David's is comparing apples and oranges and provides no sound basis for claiming the CBC is “full of it”. If anything it shows how, with full understanding, stats can be completely misconstrued.
without full understanding rather
The table does not distinguish between types of offenses, and transfers approved. I don't think it is misleading, but one needs to be wary of the inferences drawn in the absence of other information. So it may well be the case that requests for transfers by those doing 25 to life for murders are rejected, but requests from those incarcerated for lesser offenses, like drug possession, or unarmed theft, have similar approval rates as before. I'm not saying this is the case, merely noting that the data presented do not allow us to either assume or reject such notions.
As the recent grandstanding by the government over the census long-form, while continuing identical obligations for farmers and merchants indicates, the government will pick and choose what specific aspects of an area or topic they wish to make public relations mileage out of. So there may well be no overall change in number of transfer requests accepted, but a different pattern for specific types of requests that the government wishes to draw attention to. As the outcry over Clifford Olson's pension indicates, there is a tendency for this government to talk a little louder when the topic rolls around to those whom the public feels are so irredeemable that no resources or effort should be expended on them.
Agree with almost everything you say Mark. But would note the that the CBC report does states the relative number of transfers accepted and applied from has gone from 100% to as low as 70%. So we do know that less are being approved on a relative basis, but as we say we have no idea the heterogenuity or homogenuity of what does not get approved. And there also may well be shifts in who applies in the first place. We are indeed largely in the dark!