THE PROVINCES AND THE COST OF THE CRIME BILL

It is one thing for the federal government to unilaterally pass new
tough-on-crime laws. It is quite another, however, to burden
cash-strapped provinces with costs stemming from the measures without
adequate consultation.

The Harper government's Safe Streets and Communities omnibus bill has
been widely criticized as an ideologically driven, right wing
initiative. Critics maintain that it takes an excessive approach to
fighting crime at a time when crime rates are in decline and prisons
are already overcrowded.

Quebec authorities in particular are opposed to the bill's punitive
thrust, particularly as it pertains to the severity of penalties it
proposes for young offenders.

Debatable as the proposed measures may be, however, it is the federal
government's exclusive prerogative to legislate in matters of
criminal law. And it's not as though the Conservatives suddenly
sprang this legislation on an unsuspecting Canadian public once they
nailed down a parliamentary majority. The measures had previously
been put forward, though in separate bills, and the Conservatives
campaigned on them leading up to the May 2 election that delivered
them their majority.

What the government has neglected to do up to now, and what it should
decently do, is, first: determine what the cost of the measures is
likely to be, including the anticipated multibillion-dollar bill for
the spate of new prisons that will have to be built. It is disturbing
that the government has not so far come up with a figure - or, if it
does have one in hand, that it has not confided it to the public.

Then Ottawa should sit down with provincial-government
representatives to work out an equitable cost-sharing arrangement -
something it has also neglected to do so far, so that the issue now
appears to be blowing up into a major federal-provincial
confrontation. A majority of provinces, led by Quebec and Ontario,
have spoken up on the matter, and all are demanding that Ottawa at
least negotiate cost-sharing with them. This includes even provinces
such as British Columbia and Manitoba, which otherwise endorse the
measures contained in the bill. Quebec and Ontario, along with
Newfoundland and Labrador, are flat-out demanding that Ottawa pay in
full any cost increases as a result of the legislation.

While the government has been stingy with cost projections,
Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page has estimated that extra
provincial costs will exceed $500 million a year. People sentenced to
two years or less of detention - which would include, for example,
those getting the mandatory six months proposed in the bill for
growing as few as half a dozen marijuana plants - are consigned to
provincial jails.

All provinces, and Quebec more so than the rest, have nagging debts
and heavy demands for improvements in vital public services, such as
health and education, that they can barely keep up with as it is. If
Ottawa wants to burden them with more expense as a result of its
crime-fighting agenda, it should cover the cost, or at least a
mutually agreed share.

That's called co-operative federalism, something that makes Canada
work for the best. It is something that Ottawa has so far not
practised in this case.