Comparative Punishment

In Canada, crime's punishment can be extremely costly to the malefactor. The criminal, charged with an offence, will be facing justice in the courts, and if found guilty on the evidence brought against him/her will have to serve a prison sentence, perhaps pay a fine, and certainly find nothing much left of his/her reputation unless that person takes pride in having a criminal reputation.

But there is something else. Federal and provincial governments within Canada make use of a number of civil and criminal forfeiture laws. They are considered a means of collecting money from criminals for the purpose of compensating victims. It's doubtful whether or how much victims claim from these procedures. It can be assumed that the government itself ends up with the confiscated funds.

People accused of a crime for which they must face a prison term can also have their property confiscated. Their homes, their vehicles, their prized collections of coins or antiques or paintings, whatever it takes to fulfill the government's claim of recompense. One person living in Northern Ontario operated a gunsmithery. He protested the federal gun registry by not renewing his licenses. For that crime he served 7 months in prison and performed 90 mandatory hours of community service.

He was also hit with a year's probation for his licensing infraction. And then the federal government called upon forfeiture laws to seize his gun collection with a value of about $100,000, representing the family's life savings. Now the Ontario government is attempting to use forfeiture laws to seize his home, where his family is housed and so is his business.

Without doubt Canada is not the only jurisdiction where such forfeiture laws dealing with criminality and punishment for law-breaking is practised. It is done in the United States and in European countries as well. Which seems rather draconian in practise. And strange to think about in the context of the condemnation of the State of Israel which has made it a practise to destroy the homes of terrorists.

It is considered by many sources to represent a brutalizing treatment entirely disproportional and unfair to target the home of a terrorist dedicated to the destruction of the State of Israel, or to the murder of its population or both, as punishment. That terrorist's family, after all, needs somewhere to live; destroying the home makes them homeless.

Why is that all right in a democratic, civil and liberal country like Canada and not Israel? Which, after all, seeks to punish criminality of a far more serious type than merely disobeying licensing laws.