$286M TO BE SPENT BATTLING CRIME

Anti-Drug Strategy A Key Measure In Tories' Blueprint

The Conservative government will rein in new spending on law and
order this year and next, committing $286 million for nine
initiatives, including a revamped national drug strategy,
interviewing first-time applicants for new gun licences and expanding
treatment programs for mentally ill prisoners.

The additional spending is less than one-quarter of the whopping $1.4
billion over two years that the Conservatives pledged on security
spending in their first budget in 2006, when they won power after
campaigning on a justice agenda.

Liberal leader Stephane Dion accused the Conservatives of being
"always talk, talk, talk and they don't do a lot" on spending to
support their tough law-and-order legislative agenda.

NDP leader Jack Layton said the government failed on its justice
spending by neglecting to focus on programs to prevent youth crime
and dissuade young people from joining gangs.

A key item in this year's blueprint was a long-promised national
anti-drug strategy to crack down on gangs and illegal marijuana grow
operations and treat addictions.

The government said it will spend $64 million in new money on the
strategy over two years and refocus the $385 million annually that is
spent on the existing federal drug strategy, which has been maligned
for being inefficient and unfocused.

The redrawn strategy will have a significant law-enforcement
component and the government reiterated its intention to introduce
minimum mandatory prison terms for serious crimes involving drugs.

"Many serious crimes link back to the drug trade. Grow-ops or meth
labs are being found in residential neighbourhoods," the budget said.

"Gangs distribute those drugs. Then innocent people get hurt as a
result of gang warfare. That's unacceptable."

Money spent on harm reduction, including supervised injection sites
and needle-exchange programs, which the Conservatives have opposed,
will be eliminated from the program.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty also introduced $14 million in spending
over two years to randomly interview applicants for gun licences and
their references "in recognition of the tragic events at Dawson
College last year" in which a young man who legally owned a gun
opened fire on a group of students in Montreal. About 20,000
first-time licence applicants will be interviewed.

The single biggest spending item on the justice front was a
commitment to put an additional $102 million over two years into the
$1.8-billion-a-year prison system to help fix deteriorating
penitentiaries, implement a mental-health strategy for offenders and
provide corrections officers with new equipment. They have lobbied
for bullet-proof vests and better weapons.

Another $6 million will be spent over two years to strengthen
existing programs to fight the sexual exploitation and trafficking of
children "to ensure that those who commit these heinous crimes are
brought to justice."

The money will be spent on increasing the number of investigations
and to prosecute offenders, says the budget.

The government will also spend $80 million in new money over two
years on the Canadian Security Intelligence Service "to operate more
effectively within the post-9/11 environment." The new money will
increase the spy agency's annual budget to $390 million from its
current $350 million.

Another $10 million over two years will go to the Canadian Police
Research Centre, which is involved in establishing standards for
police equipment, among other things, to set up a permanent base in Regina.

There was also a promise of $10 million to expand an existing program
for seniors to help prevent abuse and telemarketing fraud.