YOUR CHOICE: PAY NOW OR LATER

One of the most ingenious marketing campaigns of all time came from
Fram automotive products.

Their slogan hit home like few other marketing strategies before or
since. A mechanic would be holding a trademark orange oil filter and
warn his customer, "You can pay me now or pay me later."

The message was blunt and wholly effective. A reasonable expenditure
today could save a ton of repair bills down the line. Getting people
to purchase services and products before there's actually a problem
has always been a tough call for the ad business. Fram's slogan, often
imitated, was brilliant.

Sadly, the message appears to be all but lost on critics of the
federal government's proposed crime legislation. Once again the
government has tabled tough-on-crime laws that would establish
mandatory minimum sentences for specified drug crimes; particularly
those involving weapons and organized crime.

The proposal has been around in one form or another since 2008. It's
known as Bill S-10 and as usual, critics are howling and screaming in
opposition to it.

The only thing different this time is that the soft on crime,
hug-a-thug crowd is complaining about the cost of building more
prisons and keeping some offenders locked up. It seems they figured
out that going to bat to keep offenders in the community rather than
behind bars wasn't much of a vote-getter. So now they're confining
their opposition to the financial consequences.

Surely there's not a person out there so naive as to not concede it
will take considerable capital to house more offenders and in some
cases, for longer periods of time.

But let's be honest here and consider the current alternative.

In thousands of cases, we are simply enabling chronic offenders to
continue committing more offences. This involves the significant
expenditure of further policing and court costs.

Those who advocate for repeat offenders being left in the community to
engage in further criminality never give any thought to the resources
required to respond to ongoing, habitual offending.

Sure, it costs money to incarcerate an offender. But let's consider
that expense in light of the money pit we dig ourselves by having to
deal with these people over the years and even decades.

It is not uncommon at all for offenders with more than fifty
convictions and hundreds of arrests to be under some form of community
supervision and merrily committing several new crimes each and every
day. Do the critics of Bill S-10 actually believe none of this has a
price tag?

Thankfully, it appears the general public has figured it out and is
solidly behind the government's anti-crime measures - as evidenced by
the Tories running away with the lead in one poll after another.

It's really quite simple: we can invest in public safety now and take
select offenders out of circulation so they can't commit more crimes.

Or, as some would prefer, we can save those prison expansion funds and
maintain the never-ending cycle of revolving door justice.

That's about it. We can pay now, or pay later. Just like the guy in
the Fram commercial warned us.