Protect Our Communities From Extortion
Ottawa, ON — Frank Caputo, Conservative Shadow Minister for Public Safety, The Hon. Tim Uppal, Conservative Deputy Leader, and Arpan Khanna, Conservative National Outreach Chair, issued the following statement on the inaction from the Liberals on extortion:
“For the last 10 years, we’ve seen the Liberals playing politics when Canadian lives are at stake. Extortion is up 330 percent since the Liberals took power as their soft-on-crime, catch-and-release laws unleashed a crime wave right across our country. It has been a fundamental failure of governance to allow extortion not only to flourish but to skyrocket.
“Extortion is shattering families. Communities are now living in fear. Every morning, we hear devastating headlines of broad daylight shootings, extortion calls and families waking up to hear that if they don’t pay millions of dollars, their kids and their homes will be shot at.
“These extortionists are targeting businesses, they’re targeting people’s homes, and they’re targeting media studios. Recently, we’ve even heard them targeting lawyers. We have had over a hundred reported cases of extortion in Surrey alone so far this year, and there are countless others that go unreported.
“This is a crisis that our communities across Canada face every single day.
“Canadians are terrified, and they want action after the Liberals have failed to keep them safe. Conservatives have put forward real solutions that would take action to tackle extortion with mandatory minimums of three years for anybody convicted of extortion, four years if you’re convicted using a firearm and five years if you were convicted in the case of organized crime.
“But instead of voting to stop extortion, the Liberals kill Conservative Bill after Conservative Bill in their tracks, consistently making excuses to vote down proposals that would keep people safe. They opposed stronger self-defence laws, repealing easy Liberal bail that releases extortionists back on our streets and changes to kick out non-citizens convicted of serious crimes like extortion.
“They talk about supporting the RCMP, but the hapless Minister for Public Safety hasn’t hired a single new officer and even says it’s not his job. The Liberals have even let 18,000 known criminals with convictions into our country with their reckless open border immigration policies without doing any background checks.
“And the Prime Minister? While Mark Carney was just in the Lower Mainland, he took a stroll on the White Rock Pier instead of meeting with victims, families, business owners and law enforcement. He didn’t have the human decency to show up and have conversations to stand up for a community that is crying for help.
“We are ready to work together and take action that keeps every Canadian safe. It’s time the Liberals stopped blocking and joined us in changing the laws to protect our communities.”