"Giving Something Back"

The current governing Liberals in Ontario are not very popular, they have outlived their usefulness to the voters and taxpayers, one and the same.

The inept use of tax money, the added taxes brought courtesy of the premier who had promised not to raise taxes as a condition of his election platform, then brought in the health premium, and the waste seen in the failed ehealth program, along with a litany of other concerns, focusing now on the soaring cost of energy have made him extremely unpopular.

The Conservatives under Tim Hudak certainly see their opportunity to ride the coattails of that unpopularity. But as party leader he's been making spending promises right, left and centre, on beefing up health and education at huge costs, in an attempt to out-promise Dalton McGuinty. It's one thing to promise there will be no cuts to services in health care delivery and education, another to promise that greater funding will be thrown at them, as a solution.

But for sheer inappropriateness of promises to appeal to the voting public, the one about getting tough with prison inmates by having them work on press gangs has to be the stupidest yet. Railing against 'waste, fraud and tax hikes' buys Mr. Hudak the attention he craves and the potential to win over voters. But putting forward a platform whereby those who commit crimes against society must be directed toward public works isn't such a great idea.

For one thing, we have no wish to see convicted criminals out in press gangs, working to clean up the streets or whatever else Mr. Hudak has in mind. I've seen such prison work in progress, in Georgia, where prisoners are shackled and working in a group to clean up the medians on a highway, overseen by a guard with a high-powered rifle. This is a scene right out of a nightmare.

There is no dignity for the prisoners involved, nor in the society itself, in selecting well-behaved prisoners, shackling them ankle-to-ankle, and ordering them to work as a clean-up crew.

Far more tenable and useful without impairing human dignity are the farm-work programs that the federal government has recently chosen to dismantle in federal penitentiary systems. If Mr. Hudak is serious about putting prisoners to work to have them 'give something back' to society, then he can put them to work in a salubrious setting where they can learn something useful and take pride in.

Failing that, prison workshops where incarcerates can produce useful products is nothing new, but would certainly make a whole lot more sense than the public humiliation and display that Mr. Hudak's idea seems to suggest. He should go back to the drawing board on this one and get serious about recommending intelligent solutions to society's problems.