What gets cut in response?

My hero, Kevin Page, has produced numbers showing that just one of the Conservative's crime bills will cost us a staggering $618 million per year.

This does not include the capital costs of building new prisons (another $1.8 billion over five years). It only looks at the costs from Bill C-25, the Truth in Sentencing Act. 


Public Safety Minister Vic Toews has budgeted $2 billion overall. Originally, he had claimed it would be only  $89 million.

The response by Toews regarding this immense bill is typical: Crime costs society, so any initiative is worth it. Of course, Page had trouble getting any data from the government, so one has to wonder how much Toews believes his own rhetoric. If it's all such a great idea, why hide the numbers, Toews?

People like Toews considered the billion-dollar price tag for the gun registry to be a waste...

When states in the US started doing this (jail guards in California became arguably the most powerful union, and donated heavily to Republicans), increased costs for the prison system was met by slashing costs in other areas, such as education.

In our system, the budgeting is even more complex as many of these costs are borne by the provinces. How convenient for the Conservatives. Pass the buck, take the credit.

Framing is everything. Instead of debating whether or not this initiative reduces crime, and, if it does, is it worth it, debate whether spending $1 billion per year less on, say, our children's education, is worth making our already declining crime rates perhaps slightly lower.