Harper's crime bills will cost $19 billion

Postmedia News:

Quebec — It will cost Canadians some $19 billion to build prisons to put more offenders behind bars for longer periods of time as part of the federal government's new tough-on-crime legislation, according to a report released Thursday.

The study, by the Quebec Institute for Socio-economic Research and Information (IRIS), also notes the provinces are expected to shoulder the majority of the extra costs associated with the legislation, which it estimates at $14 billion.

The costs associated with the omnibus Bill C-10 — providing for mandatory prison sentences for drug-related crimes and child sex offenders — are estimated by the researchers at $2.3 billion.

On top of that, the study argues annual maintenance and operation costs for prisons will reach $1.6 billion for the federal government and $2.2 billion for the provinces.

The Conservative government has so far refused to provide a full costing of Bill C-10, which combines nine previous pieces of legislation and was passed in the House of Commons this week.

The IRIS report draws on academic studies, Statistics Canada numbers, Public Security and Correctional Service Canada budget estimates and a report by the parliamentary budget officer that said it will cost $1 billion a year for five years to implement C-25, which came into effect last year. The federal government has disputed that figure and has pegged the cost at closer to $2 billion total.

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