Mr. Speaker, I can go further, and I have a modern example. Steve Sullivan, the victims ombudsman, in the last several years in two successive budget submissions, recommended that the government put sex abuse rehabilitation centres in every major urban centre in our country. Why? Because it is a well known fact that the majority of sex offenders have been sexually abused themselves.
If we want to do something to reduce the number of children who are victims of sexual abuse, we should invest in centres where they can get trauma abuse counselling, not only to help them but to cut recidivism in the future. What did the government do? Twice it rejected it and did not put a penny in its budgets to help children who were victims of sexual abuse as recommended by its victims ombudsman. Yet the government says it cares about victims of crime. Really?
All the government wants to do is show the public that it is tough on crime by locking more people up. It is a policy that is ineffective and does not work. The government cannot come up with a single place on earth where that policy approach has demonstrated a reduction in crime. That is not tough on crime. That is dumb on crime.