'These are very dark days for women,' says Green leader

I have a new piece on Xtra.ca today, based on an interview I had with Green Party leader Elizabeth May on Monday, which was following a press conference she had (where I was only one of two journalists in attendance). It was my chance to get the Green position on the issues I've been reporting about lately, and touched on several key areas.

The final piece ended up trimming down the specifics on the tough-on-crime issues, which I'm including below:

May asserts that the government’s agenda will actually increase violent crime, especially as those who have been in prisons for victimless crimes – such as the proposals for mandatory minimum six-month sentences for growing as few as five marijuana plants – could be dealt better with restorative justice.

“The problem with penitentiaries and keeping people in jail longer, is you minimise the chance they could re-enter society and you maximise the chance that they’ve just gone to criminal school and learned other ways to survive on the streets illegally. And it brutalises people.”

The Green Party also supports the preservation of prison farms, and is in fact calling for an expansion of the program.

“The data on this is really encouraging – talk about trying to restore people’s sense of self-worth, working outdoors, growing things, has actually resulted in people who’d been hardened criminals actually finding that they could find some self-worth, that they could actually see another way of living.”