An Ontario Conservative MP says the new Black Justice Strategy unveiled by the Liberals will make life worse for blacks and everyone else.In a thread on Twitter ("X"), Durham MP Jamil Jivani urged Liberals to reject their party's "troubling recommendations", predicting such "radical policies...will lead to more crime, drugs and chaos."Jivani pointed out the violent crime severity index was at its highest since 2007 and that community safety should be the priority. He said it was "appalling" that the soft-on-crime policies would be given the veneer of "black justice.".The Liberals' Bill C-75 eased access to bail, but the report calls for even easier access and for a 30% drop in prisoners by 2034, irrespective of other factors. It also calls for police budgets to be cut, and for 25% of federal transfer payments for policing to be redirected to non-police organizations.The strategy also calls for the removal of criminal penalties for up to 30 days' possession of controlled substances, such as cocaine, heroin and meth."The report argues the federal government should expand access to taxpayer-funded hard drugs, which would accelerate the death and disorder that Liberal policies have already caused by making hard drugs more readily available," Jivani complained."If the policies contained in the so-called 'Black Justice Strategy' report are adopted, there will surely be more crime, drugs and disorder in our communities. There will also be more victims of crime, and black Canadians will be affected along with the rest of the country.".Federal committee releases report about Canada’s Black Justice Strategy .The Liberals did not come up with such ideas on their own, but commissioned left-leaning academics to do the work for them. The "roadmap for transformative change" was authored by Akwasi Owusu-Bempah and Zillah Jones in consultation with 12 black groups in Alberta, B.C., Saskatchewan, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and the Northwest Territories.Owusu-Bempah is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Toronto and a Senior Fellow at Massey College. He holds Affiliate Scientist status at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and serves as Director of Research for the Campaign for Cannabis Amnesty. He previously held positions with Canada’s National Judicial Institute, the Public Health Agency of Canada, and the Ontario’s Ministry of the Solicitor General. His latest book, published by MIT Press, is titled “Waiting to Inhale: Cannabis Legalization and the Fight for Racial Justice."Zilla Jones is a sessional lecturer at Robson Hall Faculty of Law. She has presented to the Senate Human Rights Committee and is a past member of the Structured Intervention Unit implementation panel. She is Chair of the Board of the John Howard Society of Manitoba and sits on the Board of the John Howard Society of Canada and of Prairie Fire magazine.Other steering group members include Fernando Belton, who teaches courses on racial profiling at Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), the University of Ottawa, McGill University and Université de Montréal.Another steering group member, Ontario lawyer Moka Teklu. is Adjunct Professor at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law where she taught Legal Ethics since 2019. She regularly delivers training on anti-racism, access to justice, and cultural competence to judges, justices of the peace, lawyers, adjudicators and regulators through the National Judicial Institute (NJI), Society of Ontario Adjudicators and Regulators (SOAR), Ontario Court of Justice, Osgoode Professional Development, and others.In 2021 and 2022, Moya served as the Executive Director and General Counsel of the Black Legal Action Centre (BLAC)—a not-for-profit corporation focused on combatting anti-Black racism in Ontario through litigation, education, and systemic advocacy.Anthony Morgan, a former member of the steering group, was a Senior Strategic Advisor with the City of Toronto, focusing on intersectional social justice. He cofounded the Sentencing and Parole Project, a legal services non-profit which aims to reduce the over-incarceration of Black people in Canada.
