Crime is normally not a partisan issue, but Kootenay residents are asking, “Why doesn’t the government tackle violent crime?”

Well, in fact our government introduced the Tackling Violent Crime Act in the House of Commons on October 18, 2007. It was passed after just a month of debate.

The new law was sent to the Senate immediately, but has been stalled in the unelected Senate since November 29, 2007.

Clearly, the Liberal Senators must have a hidden agenda when they block and delay this badly needed new crime legislation. The Tackling Violent Crime Act provides tough new penalties for gun criminals, repeat violent or sexual offenders, and impaired drivers.

Their delay tactics focus on this law. While the Liberal senators stopped our crime legislation, they were quick to pass their favourite types of legislation, like rushing legislation to allocate money from the Conservative Government's Community Development Trust, or passing their own pay raise.

Why are Liberal Senators so intent on stalling this important justice legislation? Why is Stéphane Dion allowing his Liberal colleagues in the Senate to block new legal protections for Canadian families?

Liberal Senators are standing in the way of getting tough on gun criminals, despite requests from their own fellow Liberals in the Ontario government to act.

They choose to ignore police forces and NGO’ like MADD making impassioned pleas to pass the legislation, Liberal senators have taken every opportunity to delay this new law would protect children from sexual exploitation.

It is clear that while Liberal leader Stephane Dion understands and responds to the agendas of the Liberal power-players in the Senate, he just does not understand the vulnerable, everyday Canadian families who need this bill to pass.

When our government brought a motion to the House of Commons to demand the Liberal senators stop their delay tactics, Mr. Dion lead a mass “walk-out” of the Liberal MPs.

His weak leadership and lack of priorities allows Liberal insiders to play politics with the safety of Canadian families.

This kind of unaccountable, soft-on-crime, obstructionist behaviour not only raises serious questions about the misguided priorities of the Liberal Senators, it also raises serious questions about Stéphane Dion’s weak leadership within his own party. (except when he leads them out of the House so they don’t have to vote!)

The Federal Liberals have made crime a partisan issue by blocking the passage of the Tackling Violent Crime Act.