Stockwell Day:
A Determined Ignorance
by C. L. Cook
 In some quarters, the dogged persistence of the Harper regime might be considered commendable: This is not one of those.
The Harper administration's determination to, despite the mountains of evidence warning against the planned emulation of American justice, devote billions of dollars to a prison building spree in support of new legislation certain to explode Canadian prison populations, importing the disastrous U.S. judicial and corrections model here, is more than madness, it's criminal.
This week, Harper's front man at the Treasury Board, Stockwell Day confounded critics of the timing of his penal free-for-all. When reminded the crime rate was in decline, a trend in Canada for more than a decade, Day countered, saying the declining crime numbers did not reflect the "alarming rise in unreported crimes."
Are we to now understand the minister responsible for spending the nation's money by the billions is basing his decision to devote the treasury to building and filling prisons with Canadians for generations to come on a crime wave visible only to him?
Farewell, happy fields,
Where joy forever dwells! Hail horrors! hail,
Infernal World! and thou, profoundest Hell,
Receive thy new possessor! One who brings
A mind not to be changed by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven
Milton, Paradise Lost - Book I
Now, I don't want to get too personal, or attack Mr. Day's mental capacities, as they are, but I recall he also believes the world was borne to us complete by an invisible grey-bearded man from the sky. This grey eminence, in Mr. Day's view, built the world, and the the rest of everything in a week.
Denying Darwin and the work of all scientists since that august inquirer shucked his mortal coil, Day sticks to his guns, saying the Earth was not billions, or even millions of years in the making, but is a mere stripling of some few thousand years of age. I mention it not to poke fun at Stock's ridiculous belief system, but to point up to Canadians that the man who is one of the very few men directing the course of Canada today is not only a dedicated reality denier and moron, but poses a real danger to this country.
Melville gave us Ahab, a man whose tenaciousness led to tragedy and self-destruction, but at least the mad captain's obsession didn't bring down his country and threaten its generations yet unborn. Day cannot say the same. Though I expect he would deny to his dying breath the disaster that he and his colleagues court in bringing north the United States' punishing philosophies, the facts speak for themselves.
 Tuesday last, Day lamely answered the opposition Liberal party contention that Mr. Harper's law and order agenda will demand between 10 and 13 billion dollars in newly necessary facilities, saying;
"Figures get tossed out that the media has been quoting from the Liberals. There’s all kinds of figures floating around out there.”
Adding;
“Our estimation is possibly $2-billion over the next five years.”
What does Mr. Day, the Treasury Board president, base his estimate on?
According to Globe & Mail political correspondent, Jane Taber, Day claims his numbers are only "ballpark." He shrugged off the figure, claiming all the infrastructure needed once the Tory legal changes start taking effect on the Canadian legal process and people, is a couple billion to "rebuild some aging facilities."
For their part, the Liberals say the numbers are accurate, and based on the work of the non-partisan parliamentary budget watchdog's office.
The domestic wars America declared on drugs and crime in the Reagan years have resulted in more than 2 million Americans cycling through the industrial prison complex at any given time. It means hundreds of thousands of lives circumscribed by onerous post-incarceration punishment too, making it difficult for those with criminal records to find either employment or shelter. Most of these "criminals" pose no danger to the visible society, though in fevered imaginations no doubt constitute an existential threat to the soul of the land, being to large degree marijuana smokers. Not exactly the barbarians at the gate.
The influx of for-profit corporate prisons, expanded use of prison labour, tanking domestic economy, and the steady rise of a United Security States should give us pause in Canada before embracing the profoundly regressive American road taken. It's a second thought to be made time for before we do irrevocable harm to our society.
The questions must be: Are Stockwell Day and Stephen Harper capable of the intellectual heavy lifting required in this most telling hour in Canada's history, or will they spend the nation's treasure enriching offshore prison corporations, while incarcerating thousands of its citizens unnecessarily?
And, will Mr. Day recognize his mania in time, or will he sink the country pursuing a whale only he can see?
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