Mr. Speaker, as the member knows and as he heard quite well in question period, any time an independent officer criticizes the government, they are not reappointed. The government does not like criticism.
I actually have not read that report. The member makes a very interesting point, because the only defence that many of the Conservative speakers make for these bills that do not make any sense to the experts is that they are protecting the victims.
Now, the one thing that would allow the Conservatives to force bad bills through Parliament has turned out to be a fallacy because, as the member just outlined, the government has retracted resources to help the victims of crime.
The point I have made numerous times in Parliament, the second point on the same topic, is that the Conservatives are actually jeopardizing the victims to be re-victimized when they put forward bills that would make Canada more dangerous, by not doing what the experts say and providing treatment such as conditional sentences and restorative justice that have proven track records.
When there is restorative justice or a conditional sentence, all sorts of conditions go along with it. Conditions relate to substance abuse, which is quite often involved in over 50% of the crimes, and rehabilitation, which gets people ready to reintegrate into society. It is that which makes society safer and protects victims. We should be concentrating on that rather than sentencing that has been proven not to be effective in many cases.
Recent studies that have come out cost billions of dollars, money that could have been used to finance removing the root causes of crime, dealing with victims and rehabilitating offenders.