Today, the Star is analyzing a claim Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has made multiple times over the past year: that 40 offenders in Vancouver were arrested 6,000 times over the course of a single year. Many times, but not always, Poilievre says the offenders were violent, or links the statistic to the issue of repeat offenders committing violent crimes while released on bail.
It’s a number he’s thrown out at rallies, in the House of Commons, at news conferences, and on radio programs as part of an effort to paint the Liberal government as soft on crime.
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“A property offender is somebody who commits a crime like mischief or theft or vandalism. Somebody who causes damage or takes another person’s property,” said Kyla Lee, a Vancouver-based criminal defence lawyer.
“A violent offender is somebody who commits an assault, a murder (or) uses a weapon or threatens somebody.”
