Agreed, if you want to play this game, you might as well say that Canada is subsidizing criminals because of crime's unpaid externality. Total cost of crime is

Agreed, if you want to play this game, you might as well say that Canada is subsidizing criminals because of crime's unpaid externality. Total cost of crime is on the order of $100 billion in Canada[1], which comes to $2,700/citizen. Are you ready to say that Canada is subsidizing criminals, and when you force them to work off their cost of crime, you're just removing a subsidy for harmful behavior? No? Then don't be so loose with terminology. [2] [1] https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/csj-sjc/crime/rr10_5/rr10_5.pdf https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/csj-sjc/crime/rr10_5/rr1... [2] Previous comment/thread on the matter of using the term "subsidy" consistently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21018166 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21018166