Both the attorney general of Quebec and the premier of Ontario have weighed in and said that they won’t pay for the
additional prison costs that will be downloaded to their provinces with the coming omnibus
crime bill. (The reason so many mandatory minimum sentences
are two-years-less-a-day is because recipients of such sentences go to provincial jails instead
of federal prisons.) Rob Nicholson shows no signs of bending or slowing down.
So what will this mean? A federal-provincial game of chicken? A fresh
constitutional crisis? Fasten your seatbelts – it’s going to be a bumpy four
years.
In response to this Toronto Star story on weapons that will no longer be registered, Maclean’s offers a few clarifications, saying
that the classification of these weapons falls under a different piece of
legislation. The privacy commissioner, meanwhile, shoots down the government’s
privacy-based rationale for the destruction of the current records.
What’s that? A purchase of only 65 F-35
fighters is too few for Canada’s operational needs (which is more like 80), and
we’d be screwed if we had any losses? You don’t say! (Can we please start
talking about buying Super Hornets instead?)
The correctional investigator has concerns about the aging prison population.
And Jim Flaherty says we’re not headed for
recession. Phew!