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Jail boss hazy on impact of Tory drug law

A new bill that would immediately send drug dealers to jail may burn through budgets or scare people sober — there’s no way to tell, says Canada’s prison boss.

OTTAWA — A new bill that would immediately send drug dealers to jail may burn through budgets or scare people sober — there’s no way to tell, says Canada’s prison boss.

But Don Head, commissioner of Correctional Services Canada, told a Senate committee the government has agreed to cover the costs of implementing the law.

“Going back and trying to find specific data ... that gives us enough information to say that this bill is going to equal X number coming into correctional system, there just isn’t enough data for us to do that,” Head said Thursday.

“We do have a clear understanding with the Treasury Board that as we track the data as we go forward, at the point bill that comes into law, we can make representation for the resources that are needed.”

Bill S-10 is the third time the Conservatives have tried to get a law in place that would see drug traffickers and producers sent immediately to prison, even those convicted of growing only six marijuana plants.

The Tories say the bill is aimed at targeting organized crime, by making sentences mandatory when offences also involve weapons, or the drugs are sold to youth or near schools.

The bill also allows sentencing to be delayed if the offender agrees to accept drug treatment, though the drug treatment court program exists in only six cities.

Head told senators that 80 per cent of people coming into the prison system have a problem with drugs or alcohol, and $122 million is being spent over five years just to keep illicit drugs out of prisons.

Head said catapulting dead birds filled with drugs over prison fences or using visitors as smugglers are two of the many ways people try to get contraband into jail.

There were 1,700 drug seizures at federal prisons this year, Head said.

Some senators were incredulous that Head didn’t know the impact of this new bill on the system.

Liberal Sen. George Baker of Newfoundland pointed out that considering prison officials know how many inmates are caught trafficking, they ought to have some sense of the impact of the bill, as it also imposes mandatory minimums for drug sales in prisons.

“You know for sure they are going to be in your hands for at least two years. You were not able to do such a projection?” he said.

The short answer was no.