Former Wildrose leader Brian Jean brought his United Conservative Party leadership campaign to Grande Prairie Thursday morning, promising to toughen up the province’s stance on crime if his party forms government. Among his proposed policies are tougher penalties for violent criminals.
“Too often, Albertans have had to read headlines of dangerous predators likely to reoffend being let loose in our communities, with nothing more than maybe a notice in the local newspaper. This is not right,” Jean maintains.
He argues the provincial government needs to increase supports for Crown prosecutors. Back in March, it was forced to release a “triage” protocol that included instructions to focus on cases that are most likely to lead to a conviction, and to go for a lesser charge to resolve others quicker.
Jean is also pledging to introduce legislation that would bar dangerous offenders like murderers, rapists, and people on the sex offender registry from changing their name and increase monitoring of people on probation.
“Especially those convicted of child sexual offences. That means in-person monitoring, as well as GPS bracelets, and we will work with the federal government to broaden this to as many dangerous convicts as we can.”
Among Jean’s other promises are upping resources to stop human trafficking in Alberta, improving evidence collecting, fighting the opioid crisis. He also plans to focus efforts on rural crime like break and enters and fentanyl trafficking.