- "Get tough on Con's" - give Harper and his gang the boot.

Comment On:

Tories' law-and-order price tag at $10B: watchdog, CTV News, The Canadian Press
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20100427/prison-costs-100427/20100427?hub=QPeriod

"The Parliamentary Budget Officer forecasts the cost of implementing just one of the Tories' many tough-on-crime bills is between $7 billion and $10 billion over the next five years. "

That makes the initial costs of the Gun Registry look like Chicken feed.

The main thread running through this article is that the Harper government were refusing to release information on the costs and were, and still are, mis-representing the real costs, despite having reports on it

' . . . Liberal MPs voted in favour of the bill without knowing how the prison population would be affected. They also had no idea what the cost would be. Nor did they thoroughly examine the effects of the federal bill on provincial institutions.
When Liberal Senators asked questions about the costs, they were told that the government analysis was confidential because it was before cabinet. '

This is a similar complaint about the private member's bill on the Gun Registry. Access to Information has revealed that the then-public safety minister Peter Van Loan sat on the RCMP report on the Gun registry until after the vote. The paper trail shows that the Report was received by him on 18 September. It ought to have been released in 15 sitting days but was help up by Van Loan until 6 November, after the vote. Van Loan response, we had the Report "for several days".

If this is what Harper and the Con's are hiding respecting their "get tough on crime" legislation, it boggles the mind to think what they might be hiding in the Afghan Detainee Transfer scandal - but we should know soon enough, perhaps.

You can be sure that Harper and the Con's will launch a vicious personal attack on Kevin Page when this report is released, assuming it is in line with this article.

Even now, the Con's are apparently denying the true costs.

'In an interview Tuesday, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews "We're not exactly sure how much it will cost us. There are some low estimates, and some that would see more spent -- not more than $90 million."

The provinces should not see any increase in costs . . .'

And this is only one of the 'tough on crime' legislation.

Harper is shifting the expense of his agenda onto the Provinces. Harper gets propaganda benefits without having to pay. If I were living in Ontario or Quebec I would be very upset about this.

We saw this same thing with the reduction of the GST and implementation of the HST in Ontario and BC. Harper, again got the propaganda benefits of touting his reduction of tax's agenda, but now the people in Ontario and BC will have to pay.


Lloyd MacILquham cicblog.com/comments.html