Tough-on-crime agenda is cheap for Feds but not cheap for taxpayers

A point I have mentioned before, "tough on crime" is generally cheap for the Feds but not cheap for taxpayers.



Most of the new mandatory sentences will be served in less than two years -- so the convicts will be sent to Provincial institutions paid for by the Provinces. Taxpayers will pay but it will not come from the Federal budget.



Similarly, the enforcement by police, the extra legal aid and (most of) the extra judges (and all of the extra Justices of the Peace) will be paid by the Provinces.



Federal costing is misleading here. The Conservative "tough on crime" agenda will be costly and will be paid for by taxpayers -- but not at the Federal level.





"Liberals request financial analysis, hoping to determine implications of crime bills



Bill Curry

Ottawa— From Monday's Globe and Mail



Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page is launching the first stages of a financial analysis aimed at pinning down the total cost of the Conservative government's tough-on-crime agenda.



The preliminary work is being done in response to a written request by Liberal MP Mark Holland. The MP hopes it will determine the financial implications of three crime bills already passed into law and four others that are still being debated in Parliament.



"The government has supplied Parliament with no costing for these policies, despite the fact that the cost to our correctional system will inevitably be in the hundreds of millions of dollars as a significant influx of new federal inmates will result," Mr. Holland wrote."

James Morton

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