Stephen Harper and his party have always been interested into reducing criminality rates.  Indeed, in the past years, in order to protect Canadian citizens, they have created and modified many laws.  So, much more people are being sent to jail because of those "tough on crime" rules. 

So far, the conservative party has toughened sentencing and bail for serious gun crimes, strengthened the sentencing and monitoring of dangerous and high-risk offenders, ensured that murders connected to organized crime will be treated as first-degree murders and imposed mandatory jail time for drive-by or reckless shootings.   They’ve also ended sentence discounts for multiple murder and abolished the faint-hope clause that allowed early parole for murderers.

Then, in 2004-05, the overall budget for detention centers reached about 1 630 585$ and, by 2008-09, it had highly increased.  In fact, Canadian detention centers were granted 2.275.285$.  The average daily cost of a federal inmate increased between 2004-05 and 2008-09 from 241$ to 300$. 

In other words, more crimes will be heavy punished causing longer sentences and detention centers to be overcrowded.  So, these decisions imply huge changes.  It requires bigger buildings, more guards and a bigger budget…

Harper’s plan will require many millions that Canada doesn’t have!

Therefore, where will this new amount of money come from? Having debts up to their neck, Harper’s government might raise taxes. Who knows?

Are there any alternatives to taxes increases?
Could electronic monitoring to non-violent criminals be a solution to slightly empty detention centers?

Based on statistics from 2009, it is much cheaper to take custody of an offender in the community than to keep it incarcerated ($ 29,476 per year compared to $ 109,699).