OTTAWA - The Harper government has agreed to fund a program aimed at keeping convicted sex offenders from committing more crimes -- apparently reversing an earlier rejection of the acclaimed project.
Some $7.4 million in federal funding will be provided over five years for Circles of Support and Accountability, the office of Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan confirmed Thursday.
"By deciding today to fund this program, our government is taking concrete action to make our communities safer," spokesman Chris McCluskey said in an email.
The five-year deal will help the largely volunteer organization double the number of sex offenders in the program to about 300 next year, and more closely monitor results to determine what works best with offenders once they've served their sentences.
"We got the thumbs up," Andrew McWhinnie, the national co-ordinator of the 15-year-old program, told The Canadian Press.
He'd originally been informed that the funding application had been spiked by the minister's office after getting bureaucratic approval.
McWhinnie credits news coverage of that rejection for reversing the decision: "Had we not gone the public route, we probably still would be dead in the water today."
McCluskey insisted no decision was taken until Thursday. But he conceded that McWhinnie did have the wording of a rejection letter read to him over the phone almost two weeks ago by non-plussed officials at the National Centre for Crime Prevention, which Van Loan oversees.
"The director of the National Crime Prevention Centre was not speaking for the minister," McCluskey said.
The apparent confusion and delay in clearing up the matter irked Liberal MP Mark Holland. His office noted that the Correctional Service of Canada's website includes a page lauding Circles of Support and Accountability "for its long track record of effectiveness."
The program has been adopted by Britain and a number of U.S. states because it appears to reduce recidivism among sex offenders by more than 80 per cent.
"Corrections clearly wouldn't be in the practice of cutting a program they had been heralding," said Holland.
It was also strongly endorsed by the National Crime Prevention Centre, which had cleared the program's exhaustive funding application.
The initial rejection, Holland claimed, "was an ideological move by the government."
The Conservative tough-on-crime mantra preaches crime prevention, he said, but is really geared toward vote-winning retribution.
"It really shows how hypocritical they are when they try to play games with crimes issues," said Holland.
"At the end of the day, decisions like this show they care a lot more about the politics of crime than they do about actually reducing it."
The Correctional Service of Canada website includes a quote from one of the program's volunteers, explaining his participation, that speaks volumes:
"I used to be like everyone else. I hated these guys. Then I met one. I realized pretty quickly that he's just like me. He's a human being just like I am. Once I understood that, I could not turn my back on him. I hate what he's done but if he's willing to do his part, I'm willing to be there to help him. I don't want there to be any more victims."
