Mr. Speaker, I am glad the government supports the drug courts. I am certainly supporting the government in that respect.
When the hon. member says we should choose mechanisms that work, he should remember the stats used today that the restorative justice record was 38% to 45% failure, whereas the regular system was 73% failure. I hope the government will revisit that and stop trying to eliminate restorative justice.
Perhaps the member could reply to the concerns of two organizations. The first one is Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy. Today I had two students in from McGill from that organization and they were opposed to the reduction in harm reduction programs and support from the government and the general philosophy of the government against harm reduction. Perhaps the member could speak to that.
The second organization is the Canadian HIV-AIDS Legal Network which said that the statement that mandatory minimum sentences for drug offences will make our streets safer is a myth. It said that the detailed 2002 examination conducted for the Department of Justice concluded that mandatory minimum sentences are least effective in relation to drug offences, and noted that drug consumption and drug related crime seems to be unaffected in any measurable way by severe mandatory minimum sentences. It said that jurists and scholars from across the political spectrum have said there is no evidence that any form of mandatory sentence is effective for drug offences.
Could the hon. member address the concerns of those two organizations?