Quebec Won't Help Finance Prisons: Another Reason for Federalism?

Quebec's Justice Minister told a Commons committee yesterday that the province has no intention of paying for the prisons that the Harper government wants to build as a consequence of its omnibus crime bill.

The CBC reports him saying that: "the Conservatives' bill is more of a short-term solution to fighting crime and he repeatedly warned it will mean more repeat offenders in the court and corrections systems.

"C-10 does not take into account the return of the young offender, of the individual into society," he said.

"What you've got is a Band-Aid solution here, you're not curing anything,"

Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty has also been making noises about that province's dissatisfaction with the bill.

The Conservatives can pass the bill, which combines nine separate pieces of legislation which died on the order paper when the election was called last spring. That's the problem when you've got a majority government, even though a majority of the people didn't vote for you. The only hope is that in the current federal system the provinces will be able to make their opinions felt.