Public safety minister suggests teen prisoner Ashley Smith not a victim

OTTAWA – Public Safety Minister Vic Toews is deflecting questions about a troubled teenager who killed herself in prison by accusing the Opposition of caring more about prisoners than their victims.

Toews’ strategy seems at odds with Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who last week called Ashley Smith’s suicide a tragedy and ordered the Correctional Service of Canada to drop efforts to limit the scope of an inquest into her death.

Harper’s sympathetic response followed the release of disturbing videos of the teen’s time in prison, which showed Smith being duct-taped by guards and injected against her will with powerful anti-psychotic drugs.

Under questioning today from New Democrats, Toews said he’s “very proud” that Harper has ensured corrections officials will co-operate with the coroner.

But he then went on to blast the NDP for never speaking on behalf of victims.

NDP Leader Tom Mulcair says Toews’s partisanship has blinded him to the fact that Smith was herself a victim of the corrections system’s inability to deal with mental illness.