"FISCAL PRUDENCE" INDEED

To The Editor, RE: Justice Minister wants opposition to reinstate
crime bills: Tory crime bills will necessitate the building of 12
brand new billion-dollar jails, and cost Canadians about $500 million
every year. Why do we need so many new jails when crime has dropped
for almost 30 years? Bill C-15 - which promises to pass this session -
will impose mandatory jail sentences for simply growing one pot plant
or passing a joint. Making more things illegal, or making illegal
things even more illegal, guarantees attendance in these new cells. A
US-style for-profit prison industry will likely do for Canada what it
has done for the US: Increase crime, increase partisanship, fill the
airwaves with balderdash, increase our debt, and make a handful of
wealthy people even wealthier. "Fiscal prudence" indeed.

Russell Barth, Ottawa

(The drug war is archaic, pricey and dangerous.)