CANADIAN LABOUR-TORONTO:

CHRISTMAS EVE DEATHS IN TORONTO-THE CONSEQUENCES ?:

Since the Christmas Eve incident where four workers fell to their deaths in Toronto more evidence is coming to light of the lax safety precautions that led to this tragedy. Criminal charges may be laid, as the following item from the CBC says.

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Police weigh criminal charges in highrise deaths:
Police will determine whether criminal charges should be laid in a Toronto construction accident that killed four workers on Christmas Eve, an Ontario Labour Ministry spokesman says.

The ministry, for its part, is investigating whether the province's Occupational Health and Safety Act was violated, and can institute its own proceedings leading to fines of $500,000 against a company or jail time for its staff.

Spokesman Matt Blajer said Wednesday that the accident, in which four workers repairing balconies on a highrise plummeted 13 storeys to their deaths and a fifth was seriously injured, was a complex one. For that reason the Labour Ministry is assisting Toronto police in their criminal probe, he said.

On Tuesday, Ontario Federation of Labour president Sid Ryan called on the province's attorney general to look into whether negligence was a factor in the men's deaths.

The workers fell when the platform they were perched on snapped. The ministry and police have not released the men's names, saying only that they had "European backgrounds." Other Toronto media have said three of the workers were from Ukraine, Israel and Uzbekistan.

Investigators have also not said whether the men were wearing safety harnesses, and if so, whether they were clipped in. The building is located on Kipling Avenue near Steeles Avenue, in Toronto's northwest.

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It seems that this particular company has been an item of concern in terms of workplace safety in the past few months, as the following article from the Toronto Star shows.

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Highrise scaffolding concerns halted work for months
Provincial inspections flagged safety issues prior to workers’ deaths:
Peter Edwards staff reporter
Concerned about the safety of scaffolds at an Etobicoke highrise, the province ordered Metron Construction of Toronto to halt work on the project for two months before the Christmas Eve accident that killed four workers and left another fighting for his life.

Government documents show that Metron was ordered to stop work on the apartment building at 2757 Kipling Ave. from Oct. 20 until safety conditions were improved.

An order allowing work to resume was issued Dec. 17, one week before the five workers fell 13 storeys from a "swing stage" or scaffold, which apparently snapped in two while they were working.

Government records show that five work orders were issued at the jobsite after a ministry inspection.

The Oct. 20 work orders included one calling for inspection reports and drawings of roof anchors, warning that "no productive work can be done on swing stages until all orders are complied with and re-inspected."

Other orders issued in October included one to "provide wire mesh securely fastened in place from the toe-board to the top rail of the guardrails of the swing stages," and another to "provide guardrails near the existing guardrail near the boiler room to get access to the swing stages installation at roof."

Until that work was done, Metron was ordered to stop work at the site.

Metron president Joel Swartz said Wednesday the company has never been charged with any violation of the Occupational Health and Safety Act in its 23 years of operation, although Swartz said in an email that "Metron acknowledges that the Ministry of Labour attended the site a number of times, as is routine practice, during the course of the project."

Metron further acknowledges that issues were immediately rectified after a labour ministry order.

"On one occasion Metron proactively invited the Ministry of Labour to attend the site so that it could satisfy itself, the residents of the building and the property manager of the building that Metron was operating in compliance with all of its legal obligations," Swartz said. ( Sounds like there was more than one source of complaint-Molly )

"The Ministry of Labour did attend and was satisfied that Metron continued to be in compliance with all of its obligations."

Swartz said he intends to help the workers' families by "providing financial, administrative and emotional support, depending on their particular needs at this time. I will be making a similar offer to the individual who remains in hospital."

Provincial records show the ministry gave Metron three more orders on Dec. 17 to ensure the swing stage was finally safe for workers.

One order was to ensure that every part of the project be outfitted "to support or resist all loads and forces to which it is likely to be subjected without exceeding the allowable unit stress for each material used." Another was to "provide guardrails to work platform being used for access to swing stage near the parking garages."

Until those orders were completed, the ministry stated, "no productive work can be carried out from the swing stage."

Later on Dec. 17, a ministry inspector returned to the site for a reinspection of compliance.

"Compliance achieved, stop work order lifted," a report concluded.

On Dec. 29, five days after the accident, the ministry issued a series of future orders, including a demand for copies of all contracts related to the work site and an outline of Metron's health and safety policy, records for "fall protection training of workers" and a list of all workers on site at the time of the deaths.

Meanwhile, Dilshod Mamurov, 21, the lone survivor of the accident, remained heavily medicated in Sunnybrook Hospital and unaware on Wednesday of the deaths of his co-workers.
Mamurov suffered broken legs and a shattered spine in the fall.

He has no family in Canada and still doesn't know that a friend from Uzbekistan was killed, said Bakhtier Shakhnazarov, a member of the local Uzbek community.

Michael Yorke, president of Carpenters' Union Local 27, said he's convinced the men wouldn't have died had proper workplace protocols been observed at the Kipling site, just south of Steeles Ave. W.

"We believe that this was a preventable accident," Yorke said. "None of the workers were tied down with a lifeline." ( NB- Molly )

Labour Minister Peter Fonseca wasn't available for comment on Wednesday, after Sid Ryan, president of the Ontario Federation of Labour, called for a criminal probe into the construction accident.

Ryan called on the province to stop "carnage in the workplace," noting that the Criminal Code allows for charges to be laid when there is evidence of negligence causing death or harm to workers.

Police still haven't released the names of the men involved.

However, the media have learned the dead men include Vladimir Korostin, 40, a refugee claimant from Israel and father of two, and Aleksey Blumberg, 32, a newly married refugee claimant from Ukraine.

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There's a lot that might be said about the news above. The first thing that comes to mind is the fact that this company seems to be exclusively employing immigrants. It might be suggested that this is in order to pay lower wages, avoid unionization and have a workforce that is unaware of their rights or at least less likely to demand them. However that may be the fact is that thee deaths are not isolated incidents. they merely hit the headlines because of the mass nature and the time of year. As can be seen from this pdf report there are actually about five workplace deaths per day in Canada (data from 1993-2005). If this was an infectious disease or any other type of murder (mark you that murder by employer negligence is just as much murder as any other homicide) it would be considered a matter of national emergency.

Both Canada and the USA have a National Day of Mourning on April 28 for workers killed and injured on the job. Molly has reported extensively on this day and its grim subject before. As to Canada you can find an article and extensive references here. The same is true of the USA. See here. In the USA there is also an organization dedicated to the memory of workers killed on the job, the United Support & Memorial for Workplace Fatalities.

CANADIAN LABOUR-TORONTO:

INCO STRIKERS TAKE IT TO BAY STREET:

Last Tuesday striking workers took their campaign against Vale Inco into the corporate heartland of Bay Street in downtown Toronto as they rallied outside offices where an union representative from Brasil who sits as a token labour representative on the Vale Inco Board of Directors made their case inside. The token labour rep, appointed by Brasil's social democratic government has, of course, no real influence on Board decisions. It was, however, a good opportunity to bring the issue to the centre of power. Here's the story from the pages of the Toronto Star via the strike support site Fair Deal Now.

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Inco strikers bring beefs, nickels to Bay St.:
Toronto protest aims to sway headquarters in Brazil
Madhavi Acharya-Tom Yew Business Reporter
Vale Inco workers are hoping an appeal directly to the mining giant's board of directors will help bring their increasingly bitter conflict to an end.

Brazilian union leader Eduardo Pinto said yesterday that he plans to tell the company's board that it must take the ongoing strike, now more than two months old, very seriously.

"The community is fully behind these workers in this struggle. They are well-organized. They have a lot of will and I am convinced that they are going to win this battle," Pinto said in an interview.

"Vale is getting into a big fight for very little and this may not lead the company to a good outcome."

Pinto, who is a union representative on Vale's board, is also president of STEFEM, a railroad workers union in Brazil. He spoke to reporters in Toronto's financial district, as striking miners handed out leaflets and nickels to draw attention to their fight.

About 3,600 employees, largely at the company's flagship mine in Sudbury, walked off the job July 13 after rejecting the company offer for a new labour contract. The United Steelworkers union is also on strike against Vale Inco in Port Colborne and Voisey's Bay, Nfld.

The company offer would change workers' bonus structure, which is tied to nickel prices. It also offered defined contribution pension plans to newly hired workers, not the current defined-benefit plan.

Vale Inco, the second-largest mining company in the world with operations in 35 countries, said recently it plans to resume partial production at its Sudbury mine, regardless of the strike.

"This is the best thing to do for the business. We have 1,200 staff and employees who are not on strike for whom this provides an opportunity to offer meaningful employment," said Cory McPhee, spokesperson for Vale Inco.

Referring to the rally in Toronto, McPhee said: "We would prefer the time and effort be put into resolving the labour dispute. We didn't want the strike. We put forward a very fair offer that we feel helps the immediate and long-term health of the business."

Brazilian iron-ore giant Cia Vale do Rio Doce bought Inco in 2006 for $19.4 billion.

Workers say that, from 2006 to 2008, the company made more than $4 billion (U.S.) – twice as much as Inco made in the previous 10 years.

In 2007, nickel prices were above $24 a pound as demand from China boosted prices for the metal, used in everything from construction to jet engines and kitchen sinks. Prices now are in the $8-a-pound range and inventories are bulging.

INTERNATIONAL POLITICS/AFGHANISTAN:

UNWELCOME AT ANY WEDDING-NATO IN AFGHANISTAN:

The following op-ed piece by Linda McQuaig was originally published in the Toronto Star. It comes Molly's way via the Canadian online news site Straight Goods. Check it out for other interesting commentary.

IPIPIPIPIPIPIPIPIPIP

NATO is an unwelcome wedding guest:
Canada continues to kill civilians in Afghanistan.
by Linda McQuaig
The downside of holding a wedding in Ontario this summer is that, chances are, you'll be rained on. The upside is that, chances are, you won't be bombed.

That can't be said of Afghanistan, where the sun is more reliable, but the bride has been known to wear blood. Since 2001, dozens of celebrants — including brides and grooms — have been killed when their wedding parties were bombed by NATO planes mistaking them for Taliban operatives.

One person's collateral damage is another's fiancée.
While Canadian troops haven't been involved in these air strikes, they have been involved in civilian killings on the ground. Just last week, Canadian soldiers fired a warning shot at a motorcyclist speeding toward them. The bullet ricocheted off the ground and entered the body of a young girl nearby, killing her.

Such killings are a big part of the reason the NATO mission appears to have failed to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people. One person's collateral damage is another's fiancée.
The attitude of our military authorities toward these civilian killings is disturbing. Last week, Maj. Mario Couture simply shifted the blame onto insurgents: "We know that insurgents want to drive a wedge between the coalition force and the population, so if they can make us make mistakes, then it serves their purpose... If we fire, it works in their favour."

So we kill a young Afghan girl, and it's the fault of the insurgents?

The girl's killing at least got some media attention here. Male deaths are more readily discounted. A week earlier, Canadian soldiers killed an Afghan man and wounded three others after the minivan they were travelling in failed to slow down, according to the Canadian military. Maj. Couture explained that the victims were "all males of fighting age." Enough said, apparently.

Canadian soldiers are understandably keen to protect themselves from suicide bombers. And the Taliban undoubtedly does want to drive a wedge between us and the population. But that simply underlines why our presence there is so problematic — and wrong.

Left out of Maj. Couture's explanations is the context that we are in Afghanistan as a heavily armed foreign military force. Ottawa says we're there to champion democracy, but many Afghans see us as part of a Western occupying power that has killed, imprisoned and tortured people they love.

We're not much interested in that side of the story. While the Harper government and Canadian media show great interest in dissidents in Iran, China and Burma, they've shown little in Malalai Joya, an elected Afghan MP who was expelled from parliament for calling for the prosecution of war criminals in the Afghan government and parliament.

Hers is a compelling case championed by women's groups around the world — a young female MP in a viciously patriarchal land daring to challenge Afghanistan's powerful warlords. Yet, despite our supposed concern about Afghan women and democracy, the Canadian government and media have paid scant attention to Joya — perhaps because she considers NATO an occupier and calls for its immediate withdrawal from her country.

Although the Canadian media remain largely supportive of our military involvement in Afghanistan, Canadians aren't. An EKOS poll released earlier this month found that support for the mission has fallen from 60 percent in 2002 to just 34 per cent today. Yet two more years remain in our commitment.

Meanwhile, best to avoid weddings in Afghanistan, particularly if the party includes any "males of fighting age".

Journalist and best-selling author Linda McQuaig has developed a reputation for challenging the establishment. As a reporter for The Globe and Mail, she won a National Newspaper Award in 1989 for writing a series of articles, which sparked a public inquiry into the activities of Ontario political lobbyist Patti Starr, and eventually led to Starr's imprisonment. In 1991, she was awarded an Atkinson Fellowship for Journalism in Public Policy to study the social welfare systems in Europe and North America.

She is author of seven books on politics and economics – all national bestsellers – including Shooting the Hippo (short-listed for the Governor General's Award for Non-Fiction), The Cult of Impotence, All You Can Eat and It's the Crude, Dude: War, Big Oil and the Fight for the Planet. Her most recent book is Holding the Bully's Coat: Canada and the US Empire.

Since 2002, McQuaig has written an op-ed column for the Toronto Star. This article previously appeared in The Star.
Email: lmcquaig@sympatico.ca.

Website: http://www.lindamcquaig.com.

CONSUMER PROTECTION/CANADIAN POLITICS/CANADIAN LABOUR:

FOOD SAFETY AS AN ELECTION ISSUE:

The following appeal comes via the Straight Goods online newsmagazine, and its original source is the Public Service Alliance of Canada which represents federal meat inspectors. It asks you to help make the safety of Canada's food supply an election issue by querying your candidates on their commitment to such.

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Take action to protect food safety:‏
It’s a sad day when we can’t trust that the food we eat is safe. One thing is clear from the wave of food poisoning deaths and illness that is sweeping the country: cuts to food safety programs and industry self-policing have gone too far.

That’s why I’m writing, with the support of the union representing Canada's food inspectors, to urge you to visit www.foodsafetyfirst.ca where you can send a message to the candidates in your riding asking them to make a commitment for safer food.

Decisions by the Harper government created this mess. Let’s tell our local candidates that the price of our support is their commitment to making the food we eat safer. With only one week before election day, it’s urgent that you act. Please visit http://www.foodsafetyfirst.ca/ right now.

Yours sincerely,

Ish Theilheimer

Publisher

The StraightGoods.ca family of news websites

p.s. http://www.foodsafetyfirst.ca/ is sponsored by the Agriculture Union - PSAC, which represents Canada’s food inspectors.

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And, to whet your appetite about how the scandalous actions of our Conservative government led to the Listeriosis outbreak, here's one of many items from the FoodSafetyFirst site, an article from the Toronto Star of October 6.

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Listeria reporting rule dropped before crisis:
Meat plants not required to tell food inspectors when bacteria found

October 6, 2008
Robert Cribb

STAFF REPORTER
Four months before the Maple Leaf outbreak started claiming lives, Canada's food safety agency quietly dropped its rule requiring meat-processing companies to alert the agency about listeria-tainted meat, a Toronto Star/CBC investigation has found.

Twenty people died as a result of the outbreak this past summer, and federal meat inspectors and their union say this rule change likely made the country's listeria outbreak far worse than it had to be.

Before April 1, if a company preparing meat for sale to the public had a positive test showing listeria it "would have had to have been, not only brought to the (federal) inspector's attention, but the inspector would have been involved in overseeing the cleanup," says Bob Kingston, head of the union that represents Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) inspectors.

Kingston and four veteran inspectors interviewed for this story fear the change, part of the deregulation of Canada's food safety net, continues to pose a public health threat.

The inspection agency confirmed to the Star/CBC that there is currently no onus on companies to alert inspectors about positive bacterial results. The change came as part of a federal decision to allow companies to write their own food safety plans, with federal approval.

"If I walk in as an inspector, the plant doesn't come up to me and say we had positive tests today," said Tom Graham, the safety agency's national inspection manager. But he says the rule likely will be reinstated as a result of the federal investigation into the outbreak.

"That will happen. It's definitely ... on the table. There are a number of recommendations that will come from this," Graham said.

Neither Maple Leaf nor the safety agency will release to the public the specifics of the listeria outbreak at the plant, located on Bartor Rd. near Sheppard Ave. W. and Highway 400, so it is not possible to determine how the reporting rule would have affected the case.

The first of the 20 deaths attributable to the listeriosis outbreak happened in July, officials have said.

One Toronto inspector said there had been a "trend" in positive listeria tests leading up to the outbreak that was never reported by the plant to federal inspectors. The inspector, and three others across the country, spoke on condition of anonymity because they fear disciplinary action if they spoke publicly. "There's something wrong, that an inspector isn't aware of a trend in their own plant," the inspector said.

Inspectors and their union say the rule changes, part of the new Compliance Verification System at the safety agency, have reduced their role to paper auditors, checking the results of company tests when they visit the plant. Under current rules, the inspectors only review bacterial test results twice a month.

Maple Leaf spokesperson Linda Smith said her company makes all of its paperwork and testing available to inspectors but doesn't alert them to positive test results.

"As per the regulations, there is no requirement to inform the CFIA about any listeria test result," she said. "The protocol Maple Leaf had in place was if they found a positive, they would sanitize the area and then you'd need to find three negatives in a row to leave that area alone. In (the Maple Leaf plant from which the outbreak was traced), there were occasional positives. ... They would sanitize and test three subsequent times and in all of those cases, they did not find another positive in that area."

During the outbreak, Maple Leaf president Michael McCain said the company tests the Toronto plant's surfaces 3,000 times a year.

"Positive results for listeria inside a food plant are common," he told reporters at the time, adding that "there was nothing out of the norm" leading up to the outbreak.

Asked for the listeria test results leading up to the outbreak, Smith said last week the company would not release them publicly.

At the union representing federal inspectors, national president Kingston said he has been pushing to have the reporting rule reinstated for the past month.

If inspectors had known about the positive listeria tests, "the CFIA would have been doing their own testing to validate the success of the cleanup," Kingston said, adding after April 1, no rules required inspectors be told of any cleanup activities or repeated positives.

A Toronto-area inspector said that if Maple Leaf had been required to report the listeria test results, alarms would have gone off at the federal food safety agency.

"Bells and whistles would have been sounding if (Maple Leaf officials) had to report positive test findings to an inspector."

"We're seeing (20) people dead. We might not have had anybody dead (if company officials were still obligated to report positive listeria findings). ... It's terrible. My dad eats this stuff all the time. I eat it," the inspector said.

A veteran inspector in the Vancouver area said the safety agency needs to go back to being more hands-on in plants. "(The new system) isn't working. Let's go back to basics, get the inspector back in the plant, spending more time there."

Dr. Vinita Dubey, Toronto's associate medical officer of health, said the reporting change is "absolutely a concern. This may be a perfect example of how self-regulation may not be appropriate."

In the aftermath of the outbreak, Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz publicly defended the new inspection regime, saying about 50 per cent of an inspector's time is on the floor of plants and "the other 50 per cent is overseeing paperwork, most of it scientific in nature, test results and the like."

Not so, say inspectors, estimating their time on plant floors is down to between 10 per cent and 20 per cent of their day. "We shouldn't be called inspectors anymore," says one inspector in Vancouver. "We should be called auditors. I think the public wants inspectors on the floor, sleeves rolled up."

Another Toronto inspector says she and her colleagues used to be aware of everything happening in a plant. "Things have changed now. We're more the oversight and they run their own show. The problem ... is, it can all look good on paper, but you've got to be out there to see what's going on."

One inspector was startled to find no reference to mandatory reporting in the safety plans of plants he inspects. "There's nowhere in (the new system) that tells them they have to inform you of a high bacterial load."

That lost oversight, he says, had to play a role in the outbreak.

"I think it would have prevented a preventable situation like the listeria (outbreak). It has alarmed me and it's disappointing. It's a travesty for the department and a shakeup the CFIA needs to get grassroots feedback about what works and what doesn't. (This) isn't working."
But the agency's Graham said the system still protects the public.

"Are we missing things? It's unfortunate what's happened here with the outbreak. There's no doubt about that. None of us are happy about that. But is our system a good system? Yes, it is."
Toronto Star

CURRENT ISSUES:

THE FAILURE OF IMPRISONMENT:

Here's a recent article that is really making the rounds. It began life in the "vaguely" liberal (more Party than conviction) Toronto Star. From there it travelled to the libertarian Bureaucrash blog, which I have recently added to the Links section of this blog despite many misgivings- no, the American export of "libertarianism" is only slightly!!! more palatable to my taste than the other American exports of quirky anarchism such as primitivism and "post-anarchism". Still, it finally ended up here at Molly's Blog, an unashamedly "left anarchist" blog . Now that is travelling. Perhaps that is because the opinions expressed are worthy listening to whatever your ideological preconceptions.

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CRIME AND PUNISHMENT: MICHIGAN'S WOES:
Betsy Powell Staff Reporter
With new laws in Canada that will put more people away, for longer – in jail and prison systems where rehabilitative programs are unavailable or difficult to access – the cost of jailing is about to go up. If the aim is to reduce crime, Michigan is proof otherwise. And the cost is more than dollars.

DETROIT–

On 16 hectares once used by Chrysler to house automobiles sits Ryan Road's best-kept property, more than a dozen buildings bordered by four-metre fences topped with coils of razor wire and five gun towers.

Surrounding Ryan Correctional Facility, on Detroit's east side, are abandoned houses with plywood-covered windows and padlocked doors. Inside the facility, Donald Larson is serving a life sentence for brokering a cocaine deal set up by a police informant.He has been behind bars since his arrest in 1992. His son, just 5 at the time, just graduated as a sophomore year at college.

It was his first offence. Still, the judge had no choice but to impose a mandatory minimum sentence of life in jail after a jury found Larson guilty.

Responding to law enforcement lobbying in the `70s and `80s and the perception that drug-fuelled crime was out of control, politicians across the United States enacted tough sentencing laws believing they would snare major drug dealers and deter drug use while showing the public they were being tough on crime.

Michigan's mandatory minimum sentences for drug offences, including the so-called "650-Lifer" law that locked up Larson, were viewed as the harshest in the nation.

Today, Michigan is lock-up central. It has 50,000 inmates – Canada, with more than three times the population, has 32,000 – and 50 correctional facilities, 35 built since 1985.

But the state's "mass incarceration experiment" has achieved none of its stated objectives, says Laura Sager of Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM).

"The dividends were broken families and broken communities not less crime."

Michigan's bloated prison population costs taxpayers $2 billion a year, more than the state spends on higher education, at $1.7 billion. Michigan is No. 1 in the nation in the proportion of its $9.8 billion state budget — 20 per cent - spent on corrections.

If the goal of locking up more people is to increase safety than Michigan "should be Shangri-la," said Sager in an interview in a tiny FAMM office in Lansing, the state capital 150 kilometres west of Detroit.

Yet Michigan's violent crime rate in 2006 was 562 per 100,000 people, according to the Citizens Alliance on Prisons and Public Spending. Detroit alone had 400 homicides last year.

By comparison, Minnesota has an extremely low incarceration rate — 176 per 100,000 - and a violent crime rate (in 2006) of 312 per 100,000. Michigan's violent crime rate was 17.6 per cent higher than the national average; its incarceration rate is 22 per cent higher than the national average.

But today many states, including Michigan, are reversing tough-on-crime policies that have put one in 100 adults in America behind bars – the Land of the Free has a higher level of imprisonment than China or Russia(!!!!!!-Molly). In 2007, states spent more than $49 billion on corrections, up from $11 billion 20 years earlier.

There is growing recognition that public dollars should be diverted to services and programs that address the social and root causes of crime, such as counselling for drug addicts and creating opportunities for at-risk youth.

"Many cash-strapped states are embracing a view once dismissed as dangerously naive: It costs far less to let some felons go free than to keep them locked up," the Washington Post reported last month (may). This is happening at a time when Canadian politicians are enacting more mandatory sentences – including lengthier sentences for drug offences.

If mandatory minimums were intended to target drug kingpins, they failed abysmally, casting "such a wide net that low-level addicts and couriers and people very much at the bottom of the drug trade are swept in a wide net and sent to prison for decades for really what is very minor activity," says Sager.

Larson doesn't suggest his crime of 16 years ago was minor. But he says he was no drug kingpin and argues a just sentence would have been five to seven years.

"They stole my life," says Larson, a tall, well-spoken man with bright blue eyes and a moustache. He sits on a plastic chair inside a visitor room at Ryan wearing a blue uniform with orange stripes, his inmate numbers written in white down the leg.

Larson, 47, has never surfed the Internet. He can only dream about the lamb chops he once loved to eat in Greek Town. Since his arrest on Aug. 26, 1992, the only meat he has consumed comes in boxes marked "For institutional use only."

Sixteen years ago Larson was just over a month away from opening up his own gym franchise and owed contractors money. But he spent $7,000 on one trip to Las Vegas, making him vulnerable to the repeated overtures of a drug-dealer turned police informant who offered cocaine at a discount. He bought 2,000 grams — 2 kilos - acting as a middleman intending to turn it over to two buyers and make some quick bucks to cover his debts.

"They wanted to bust me because I had met his connection one time for like 10 minutes and the police wanted me to snitch on that guy with the informant," he says. He wouldn't co-operate so they said "okay have a nice life and turned my case over to the state which carries the life sentence." Federally he would have only got two to five years.

While inside prison, Larson paid for correspondence courses and got his degree in business management. He also earned certification as a fitness trainer, nutritionist.and tutored other inmates. He wonders why taxpayers continue to spend roughly $32,000 a year to keep him locked up "when I could be out paying taxes and supporting my family."

Since legislators overturned the law in 1998, some 650 Lifers have seen their sentences commuted, depending on when they were originally sentenced. Last year the parole board decided Larson's bid for release had "no merit." He is now eligible for parole in October 2009.
"I can't even do all the stuff that I've done and not get recognition or get out somewhat early."
He's shocked that Canada's Conservative government is proposing new minimum sentences for a range of drug offences, including an automatic one-to-two year sentence for someone convicted "with aggravating factors" for trafficking more than 3 kilograms.

"It's a bad thing. You guys can't go that way."

FAMM's intense lobbying helped to put a human face on the people languishing behind bars, prompting Michigan lawmakers to ease their mandatory minimum rules.

"Oddly enough, it wasn't about the money (cost of incarceration), although it was significant. The people knew these laws had overreached," says Sager. "There were also people of conscience on both sides of the aisle who were willing to say `We made a mistake. These laws have created a worse problem than we anticipated.'"

They included a former Republican governor of Michigan, William G. Milliken, who said passing mandatory minimum drug sentences was the biggest mistake of his administration. "I believed then it was the right response to an insidious and growing drug problem. I have since come to realize that the provisions of the law have led to terrible injustices and that signing it was a mistake — an overly punishing and cruel response...," he wrote in an op-ed piece published in the Detroit Free Press in 2002.

Yet there are opponents who say slashing corrections costs by reducing sentences will "put public safety at risk."

"Releasing felons back onto our streets through lower penalties isn't the answer," Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, a Republican, says in a posting on his web site. Senate Republicans say privatizing prison services such as medical care and transportation can save up to $200 million a year.

Patricia Caruso, a long-time prison warden and now director of Michigan Department of Corrections, can see "both sides" the debate.

She recalls seeing family members of people killed by a parolee. "When you look people in the eye whose kids were the same age as mine were murdered by this animal you understand that you really get a sense of the other side."

Two years ago, for instance, a parolee named Patrick Selepak killed three innocent people, including the torture killing of a man and his pregnant wife, and another man. The parole board, responding to the public outcry, responded immediately. It later turned out he had been mistakenly released from prison.

"Our population went up by 500 prisoners in a month," says Caruso. "When someone you voted to parole who you thought wouldn't be a menace does something like that you question everything that comes in front of you."

Still, "a lot of people have come to the conclusion that we're not being tougher on crime by spending so much money locking people up. The problem is when you work at making progress towards that, someone can always point to something bad that happens. The fear factor plays a really significant role in the debate and it doesn't always belong to one political party."

There are conservative voices in Michigan calling for cost-savings to be achieved through cuts to the inmate population. Kenneth M. Braun, a budgetary and fiscal analyst with the Mackinac Center for Public Policy – described by the Detroit News as normally a conservative ally – last year endorsed Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm's recommended changes in sentencing for about 230 crimes. "The critical component is reducing the time for those convicted of non-violent offences," he wrote. Unfortunately, Republicans last summer "dug in their heels against genuine spending reform," Braun stated.

Sager understands some of the reluctance is political.

The recession has ravaged Lansing and much of Michigan. In the capitol, bulldozers rake vast empty fields where giant auto assembly plants once stood.

General Motors was "everything" and provided high wages even to people without formal education. The explosive growth in prison spending coincided with the auto sector's decline in the Rust Belt, notes Sager.

Jobs are at stake if felons are released and prisons are closed. One-third of state employees, 17,000, work in the prison system. In 2007, Michigan's unemployment rate hit its highest level in 14 years.

Closing prisons in rural communities that depend on them economically is "a tough political question," says Sen. Michael "Mickey" Switalski sitting in his office across the street from the Michigan State Capitol building in Lansing.

"You've got a massive investment in the local community, roads, sewers, to support the facility, jobs...a lot of people work in the prison (and in a) tough economy is this the time to lay off all these people? No, it's horrible, devastating for the community," says Switalski, a Democrat from Roseville, a town across the river from Windsor. He volunteers at a women's prison as a teacher.

"Is that what prisons should be about? It should be about keeping the public safe, about reforming people, not about jobs' programs. You can't separate that. Once you create it, it's going to try to preserve itself."