BIG PRICE TAG FOR CRIME BILL

The federal Conservatives like to talk about the importance of
"getting tough on crime." But they are reluctant to reveal the bill
taxpayers will face for initiatives that might or might not bring any
improvement to public safety.

Parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page filled in one of the blanks
this week.

The government's Truth in Sentencing Act eliminates the current
practice of giving inmates two-for-one credit for time spent in jail
awaiting trial. Pre-trial custody, with no programs and little time
out of cells, is considered hard time.

The change will mean more people in prisons for longer periods. Page
looked at the impact and concluded the cost to run federal and
provincial jails will more than double, to $9.5 billion from $4.4
billion a year by 2015.

Provinces are responsible for inmates serving less than two years.
B.C.'s jails are already overcrowded. Page estimates the provincial
government will need to spend between $700 million and $1.1 billion to
build new prisons. Operating costs would also rise.

Maybe the sentencing change is useful. But surely not with a price tag
in the billions, when crime is dropping and governments are in a
financial vise.

The report raises two other questions. Why would the government
introduce -- and MPs vote for -- a new law without understanding how
much it would cost? (Public Safety Minister Vic Toews originally said
the law would mean additional costs of less than $90 million over two
years. In April, he upped it to $2 billion over five years. We prefer
Page's independent analysis.)

And how much more will the Conservatives' other crime measures --
longer sentences, mandatory minimums and the rest -- cost taxpayers?

Toews says he has a "good idea" of the total cost, but doesn't want to
share the information with the public.

Getting tough on crime looks a lot like getting tough on taxpayers.