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The response of the government to the situation speaks to how seriously it takes the issue. So far, apparently, not too seriously. When reports were first made public, in the top-down government fashion typical of the Ontario Liberals, Naqvi ordered the jail to … stop it. Having first denied the shower bunks existed, then admitted they did, Naqvi simply waved the magic wand of government and assumed a ministerial diktat would make the problem go away. To no one’s surprise, jail managers (at least one of whom has now been replaced) ignored the order and kept using the shower cells. Not out of defiance or a fondness for insubordination, but for the same reason they began using the showers in the first place: there are too many people in being held to properly house them all. An order from the boss doesn’t change the facts on the ground.

Naqvi’s days as minister may be numbered. He clearly does not have a handle on the file, or how to deal with it, now that he’s been forced, reluctantly and belatedly, to admit a problem exists. But the issue runs deeper than one minister or one facility. Overcrowding in Ontario jails has been festering for years, growing worse while the provincial Liberals look the other way. While able to find billions of dollars for pet projects, basic housekeeping has been ignored. Money spent on jails doesn’t win votes the way splashy budgets for alternative energy schemes may.

Liberals at both the federal and provincial levels loved to poke fun at Stephen Harper for spending money on jails. Perhaps he did so because he realized it was necessary. Ontario Liberals prefer to pretend it isn’t. They don’t seem to particularly care about the conditions their fellow citizens experience on the inside.

National Post

mgurney@nationalpost.com

Twitter.com/MattGurney

Matt Gurney is editor of and a columnist for the National Post Comment section. He hosts National Post Radio every weekday morning from six to nine Eastern on SiriusXM’s Canada Talks, channel 167.