FEDS CREATE MORE SPACE FOR CRIMINALS

Almost $80 million earmarked to expand Fraser Valley prisons

The federal government will spend almost $80 million to expand Fraser
Valley prisons over the next three years, Public Safety Minister Vic
Toews announced Monday.

At an Abbotsford news conference, Toews said the facilities will
create space for hundreds of new prisoners.

"Our government is proud to be on the right side of this issue -- the
side of law-abiding citizens, the side of victims who want justice,
and the side that understands the cost of a safe and secure society is
an investment worth making," Toews said.

"The expansion of institutions in the Fraser Valley not only reaffirms
our government's commitment to British Columbia, but helps ensure that
criminals serve sentences that better reflect the severity of their
crimes."

This $77.5-million expansion includes new 96-bed units at
maximum-security Kent Institution in Agassiz and medium-security
Matsqui Institution and the Pacific Institution, both in Abbotsford.
As well, minimum-security Ferndale in Mission will get a new 50-bed
unit and the women's Fraser Valley Institution in Abbotsford will get
24 new spaces.

Toews said the 362-space expansion should be completed in
2013-2014.

"Action has a cost and that is a cost that Canadians are willing to
pay because cost to society is much more, not just in dollars," he
told reporters. "The cost of fear, the cost of physical and property
damage, the cost of threats, intimidation and spirit in communities
from coast-to-coast."

But Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh said the federal government is pouring
cash into prison construction, while ignoring crime prevention,
at-risk youth and rehabilitation programs to help convicts change.
"Ironically you have the largest infrastructure program in the history
of the country constructing prisons," Dosanjh (Vancouver South) said.
"Jails are bursting at the seams. Under this government, there are
thousands more prisoners incarcerated over the years while the crime
rate has been going down consistently."

He said the Conservative government took away the discretion of judges
to hand out appropriate sentences for non-violent drug offences,
forcing more offenders to prison.

Conservative Abbotsford MP Ed Fast disagreed, saying new legislation
eliminating the routine crediting of double-time for pre-trial custody
has meant offenders are serving more appropriate sentences. "In the
previous system, a violent criminal sentenced to nine years in prison
could potentially be on our streets in as little as three years if he
or she spent two years awaiting trial. This possibility is not
acceptable to Canadians," Fast said.

Gord Robertson, regional president of the Union of Canadian
Correctional Officers, welcomed the expansion.

"With increasing numbers, there is always increased tensions.
Doublebunking is always a dangerous situation, so I mean if we can
keep it so we are not double-bunked in most of the institutions, that
is obviously a best-case scenario," he said. "We have seen a new breed
of prisoner that is less respectful and you know what they are like on
the street, well, they are the same inside."