Ottawa to build new federal prisons

Due to Canada’s "unacceptably high" crime rate, federal Public Safety Minister Vic Toews says Ottawa has no choice but to build new prison units. Toews wouldn’t say how many new units are in the works or where they’d be located, but he pledged to do everything in his power "to keep dangerous prisoners behind bars." Recent data from Statistics Canada shows the country’s crime rate has in fact been falling. "Both the volume and severity of police-reported crime fell in 2009," three per cent from 2008 and 17 per cent from 1999, according to the StatsCan report. However, Toews dismissed the data, saying "crime isn’t going down" and that "Canadians should not be subjected to that kind of crime rate."

CBC News