Ontario Attorney General Yasir Naqvi is responding to demands he resign.
Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown made the demand at Queen's Park last week, following media reports indicating Ontario did not have enough probation officers to monitor everyone on probation.
Naqvi tells CFRA's Ottawa Now with Evan Solomon Brown is being hypocritical.
"I think it's quite a nerve that Mr. Brown has got to ask these questions where he was part of a Stephen Harper government that has created the problems that we are trying to solve by packing up our jails by having mandatory minimum sentences," Naqvi says. "He's a guy who supported a Harper government that cut funding for an award-winning program that provided rehabilitation services to sexual offenders [the Circles of Support and Accountability]. The Trudeau government just reinstated that funding. So, I really wonder where Mr. Brown is coming from and what credibility he has on these issues where he's responsible for creating a lot of these problems that we're dealing with."
Naqvi says the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services has hired more staff, and it is working to implement recommendations by correctional advisor Howard Sapers.
"Minister Marie-France Lalonde is working on that issue," he says. "We've hired more probation and parole officers, and the work that Howard Sapers is doing in giving us advice on how we continue to transform our system, we're going to continue working on."
Naqvi, the MPP for Ottawa-Centre, was the Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services before becoming Attorney General.