The Conservative government has doubled the budget for prison construction and maintenance as it prepares federal institutions for an influx of inmates resulting from its suite of new crime laws.
In an interview with The Globe and Mail, Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan revealed the government is leaning toward renovating existing prisons and building new wings as Ottawa's short-term approach to managing the increase.
He said cabinet will take another two or three years before deciding whether there is a need to build large new regional prisons as recommended in a 2007 advisory report - but the government already has some land in mind.
The plots are currently being used by inmates for milking cows and gathering eggs to feed their fellow convicts. It is part of the prison-farm program the government is phasing out after more than 150 years.
Since coming to power in 2006, the Harper government has introduced several justice proposals that would increase the use of mandatory minimum sentences, end house arrests and eliminate a judge's ability to credit a prisoner with two days served for every one spent in pretrial custody in calculating sentences.
Mr. Van Loan said he has seen internal estimates that provide a projected range for prison population growth as a result of government legislation either passed or before Parliament. However, those numbers are a cabinet confidence and cannot be disclosed, he said.
"Each bill brings with it a different impact," Mr. Van Loan said. "But ultimately we anticipate some need for major investment."
Most of the approximately 33,000 offenders now incarcerated are the responsibility of the provinces or territories, either because they are awaiting trial or sentencing or serving sentences of less than two years.
Mr. Van Loan said new minimum sentences and an end to bonuses for time spent awaiting trial would see more people serving more than two years and, as a result, ending up in one of Canada's 58 federal institutions.
"The effect of that bill [ending the two-for-one credit] is essentially a massive transfer, financially and in terms of custodial obligations, from the provinces to the federal government," he said.
Mr. Van Loan, who is responsible for the Correctional Service of Canada, said that until cabinet decides on a long-term plan, the farm-program lands will be rented out to farmers.
"It wouldn't be prudent to dispose of the land if you may have potential plans in the future to build super regional prisons," he said. "We don't know how many we will do. But it just wouldn't make a lot of sense in protecting the taxpayer's interest to unload all that land and then decide three, four years hence that you've got to get it back."
A public campaign is under way to save the prison-farm program, which teaches inmates at six institutional farms the ins and outs of agriculture. Proponents, including current prison farmers who are speaking out in the media, say the program teaches universal skills like punctuality. They also say caring for animals instills a sense of compassion.
The government says the program's $4-million budget could be better spent elsewhere, given that less than 1 per cent of released inmates end up in agriculture. Mr. Van Loan said the public and inmates are better served by programs focused on more employable skills such as landscaping or furniture-making, adding that landing a job after prison is a key factor in avoiding a return to crime.
He denied any link between the program's end and the government's expansion plans.
The move to mandatory minimums is in response to the perception among some that Canada has a "revolving-door" justice system that goes easy on repeat offenders. The measures are supported by the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, particularly in relation to anti-drug measures contained in a bill now before the Senate.
