Bill C-12 (Historical)

Drug-Free Prisons Act

An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act

This enactment amends the Corrections and Conditional Release Act to require the Parole Board of Canada (or a provincial parole board, if applicable) to cancel parole granted to an offender if, before the offender’s release, the offender tests positive in a urinalysis, or fails or refuses to provide a urine sample, and the Board considers that the criteria for granting parole are no longer met. It also amends that Act to clarify that any conditions set by a releasing authority on an offender’s parole, statutory release or unescorted temporary absence may include conditions regarding the offender’s use of drugs or alcohol, including in cases when that use has been identified as a risk factor in the offender’s criminal behaviour.

Drug-Free Prisons Act

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

moved that Bill C-12, an act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-12, the drug-free prisons act. I would like to seek unanimous consent to split my time with the member for Northumberland—Quinte West.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Does the hon. parliamentary secretary have the unanimous consent of the House to split her time?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the bill before us today gives new tools to the Parole Board of Canada to help ensure that prisoners remain drug-free, both inside the prison and while they are on parole.

I will speak to the details of this important common-sense bill in just a moment, but first allow me to give some background on what has brought us to this point.

The issue of drug use in our federal prisons is a serious concern to this government. Many Canadians may be surprised to learn that drug use is rampant in our prisons. Despite the best efforts of our front-line officers, the criminal element is still able to bring drugs into the penitentiaries.

The scope of the problem becomes clear when we look at the actual numbers. In the fiscal year 2010-11, close to 1,500 drug seizures took place in federal prisons. These are worrisome numbers. Our prisons are less safe and secure when there are drugs involved.

Our government has provided vital funding towards tackling drugs in prisons. In 2008, we committed $122 million over five years towards developing and implementing a more rigorous approach to drug interdiction in our federal prisons. This funding has gone towards an expanded detector dog program, increased security intelligence capacity in institutions and communities, and enhanced partnerships with law enforcement organizations.

However, we did not stop there. We knew that Canadians remained concerned about this issue and that we had to move ahead with further concrete actions. To this end, our government made three commitments to Canadians in our 2011 Conservative platform, with a goal of creating drug-free prisons. These commitments would subject all prisoners to random drug testing, give stricter penalties to those found with contraband in prison, and deny prisoners parole if they fail a drug test.

As I mentioned, our first commitment in our 2011 Conservative platform was to put in place measures that ensure all prisoners undergo drug testing. To reach that goal, Correctional Service of Canada has recently increased its monthly random urinalysis testing from 5% of the prison population to 10%. With this increase, we now have a system in place that helps ensure each inmate is tested at least once per year, thereby fulfilling our commitment to capture samples from 100% of the prison population.

We have also made changes related to our second commitment, that the Correctional Service of Canada would refer serious cases to law enforcement for appropriate action. The Safe Streets and Communities Act, which Canadians know members opposite voted against, put in place mandatory minimum penalties for trafficking or possession of drugs in a prison or on prison property.

These measures move us closer to fulfilling our Conservative platform commitment to creating drug-free prisons. That brings me back to the drug-free prisons act, which would help us meet the third commitment in our 2011 Conservative platform by giving the Parole Board additional legislative tools to act as the strong authority and decision-making body that it should be.

Bill C-12 is straightforward. It proposes two amendments to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act.

First of all, the drug-free prisons act would provide the Parole Board of Canada with the specific authority to cancel parole after it had been granted and before the prisoner leaves the penitentiary, if that prisoner fails or refuses to take a drug test. This is an important change. Under this legislation, the Correctional Service of Canada would be required to provide that information to the Parole Board.

The second proposed change under the drug-free prisons act also supports the work of the Parole Board, allowing it to require parolees to stay off drugs. If the prisoner violates that condition, the Parole Board of Canada can revoke parole.

These proposed changes would allow our government to continue our significant work toward ending this illicit activity.

While we are busy and focused on the safety of our communities and reducing drug crime, the NDP brings forward dangerous suggestions, like providing needles to inmates. Not only is this giving hard-core drugs like heroin to prisoners—a really bad idea—it is a significant risk to the safety of our hard-working front-line correctional officers, not to mention the prisoners themselves.

We also see shameful acts by the leader of the Liberal Party, who goes to speak at grade schools to promote the legalization of illegal substances like marijuana to our children. This is shameful. Canadian families deserve much better.

There is no doubt that drug and alcohol abuse in our federal prisons presents a serious barrier to correcting criminal behaviour, which is why our Conservative government is fully committed to keeping illicit drugs out of the hands of prisoners.

I know there is some debate in some circles over whether we can successfully rid our prisons of drugs, alcohol and other contraband. I also know that we cannot and will not back away from this challenge. We will not turn a blind eye to this problem.

Our government will remain focused on initiatives that will help us tackle drugs and alcohol in our prisons. We will not back down from prioritizing the safety of our correctional officers. With the changes proposed in the drug-fee prisons act, the parole board would have more specific authority to make decisions that have a significant impact on the safety of our communities.

I urge all members of the House, especially members opposite, who far too often are the champions of policies that are soft on crime, to support the rapid passage of this critical piece of legislation.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the parliamentary secretary's speech, and I think it once again ignores some basic facts. The Conservatives claim to be very proud about testing all prisoners for drugs, and they have found as a result of those tests that there are many people who are still using drugs in prison. The problem is that there are 3,000 people in prison on the wait list for addiction treatment programs.

Testing does not solve the problem; what solves the problem is treatment.

Does the government have any plans to address the real problem with something that would actually make a difference?

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Correctional Service of Canada spends between 2% and 5% annually, approximately $150 million per year, of its total operating budget on core correctional programs, including those that deal with substance abuse. We are dealing with the particular question that the member had.

What I find most interesting, and I mentioned it in my speech, is that the member from the NDP, along with his entire caucus, wants to have a needle exchange program in prisons. On this side of the House, we do not think it is a good idea to give convicted criminals, with serious histories of violence, long, sharp, and pointy metal objects.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, in her reply to my colleague, the parliamentary secretary indicated there was 2% to 5% spent annually on correctional programs, including those addressing substance abuse. To get more specific, exactly how much money is spent every year on dealing with substance abuse problems, which my colleague has indicated has led to 3,000 people in prison waiting for treatment for substance abuse?

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned, it is approximately $150 million per year that Correctional Service of Canada spends on core correctional programs, including the substance abuse programs.

I want to make it clear that it is not the only thing it does. Our government has actually adopted a three-pronged approach to dealing with this issue in prisons. First with regard to increased interdiction, in 2008 the government invested $122 million over five years to increase this process. Our efforts include drug detector dogs, security intelligence capacity and perimeter security. In addition to that, the third prong is deterrence through increased offender accountability and penalties. That was achieved through the Safe Streets and Communities Act, from 2012.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary mentioned that in 2008, $110 million was spent on interdiction. I sat on the study of drugs in prisons. What we found was that the number of people who were testing positive for drugs before the $110 million was spent and then after three years was about the same. In fact, the interdiction of $110 million did not make any difference in the percentage of prisoners with some sort of drug in their systems.

Would the member agree that perhaps that money should have been spent on the demand side of it, helping those who are on the wait list to get into the programs to get off drugs?

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we all agree in the House that drugs in prisons are a significant problem. Not only do they pose a threat to our hard-working front-line correctional officers, but they also pose a threat to the inmates themselves. It does a second thing. When someone is using illegal drugs in prisons, it impedes their rehabilitation process and their ability to actually use some of those abuse programs. It also presents public health issues.

According to Correctional Service of Canada, CSC, more than 80% of federal inmates have had a substance abuse problem that requires intervention. This was before they were actually incarcerated, in a year leading up to their offence. It is a serious problem. We are addressing it with our three-pronged approach.

Lastly, offenders who are in jail ought to be held accountable for their offences. We should not simply be turning a blind eye to illegal drug use and enabling them to continue with it.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-12, the drug-free prisons act. I would like to thank the parliamentary secretary for her comments.

I have spoken with many of my constituents about this important bill. Their response is always the same. They believe that it is common sense that our prisons, the places where we send the worst elements of society to become rehabilitated, be free of drugs and contraband. However, that is unfortunately not true. Every year, 1,700 prisoners receive discipline for failing drug tests.

There is no doubt that drug and alcohol abuse in our federal prisons presents a serious barrier to correcting criminal behaviour and creates an unsafe environment for correctional staff. That is why our Conservative government is wholly committed to keeping illicit drugs out of our prisons.

We promised Canadians in the 2011 election that we would test every prisoner for drugs at least once a year, create tougher penalties for those who possess or sell drugs in prison, and deny parole to those prisoners who fail drug tests. I am proud to report that we are delivering on these commitments.

We have increased random drug testing for prisoners. Now, 10% of prisoners are tested each month, meaning that 120% of the prison population is tested every year. We have invested significantly in drug interdiction, including having effective and well-trained detector-dog teams. We have created tough mandatory sentences for those who sell drugs in prisons.

Now we are bringing forward the drug-free prisons act, which will give the Parole Board the authority to cancel parole after a positive drug test. It will emphasize the fact that the Parole Board can impose conditions against the consumption of illegal drugs while on parole. It will define what a positive drug test means in law so that bureaucrats cannot be confused and let out prisoners who have clearly not had their behaviour corrected.

That is our record. Now let us look at where the opposition has stood. Rather than cracking down on drugs in prisons, the NDP has suggested a needle exchange program behind bars. Members heard me correctly. Not only do the New Democrats want to give illegal drugs, such as heroin, to prisoners, they want to put more sharp metal objects in the hands of dangerous, convicted criminals. I wonder what front-line prison guards would have to say about the increased risks they would face should any misguided proposal like that occur.

Canada's largest medium-security institution is in my riding. I am very familiar with and speak on a frequent basis with the folks who work at one of Canada's largest prisons. I have been told time and time again that they would not be in favour of this.

The leader of the Liberal Party is focused solely on legalizing drugs, the kinds of drugs that change behaviour and send people to jail in the first place. The Liberals have never seen a common-sense measure to improve corrections that they did not oppose. Their leader even went so far, while he was out trolling for votes, as to go to a school in Brandon, Manitoba, to talk about how he wants to make it easier to get access to marijuana.

Our Conservative government will continue to take a comprehensive approach that includes interdiction, training for correctional officers, and treatment programs for prisoners.

I know that there is now a debate in some circles about whether we can successfully rid our prisons of drugs, alcohol, and other contraband. I also know that we cannot and will not back away from this challenge. Our government will remain focused on initiatives that will help us tackle drugs and alcohol in our prisons. We will not back down from prioritizing the safety of our correctional officers.

With the changes proposed in the drug-free prisons act, the Parole Board will have more specific authority to make decisions that have a significant impact on the safety of our communities. Thanks to the strong actions by our Conservative government, we can say that we are tackling this problem head on.

No longer would prison drug dealers be able to operate with impunity. No longer would the Parole Board be toothless in trying to revoke perks from drug-addicted prisoners, and no longer would prisoners be able to hide from drug tests by playing the numbers game.

I call on all members opposite to stop putting creature comforts, including illegal drugs, ahead of the rights of law-abiding Canadians. Join with the Conservative government and vote in favour of the bill.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a laudable goal, and I do not think there is a person in this House who does not want to address substance abuse, and especially drug addiction.

It is a very important goal, but we also have to realize that more punitive measures do not fix the problem. What we need are real prevention programs and treatment programs.

One of the key things that concerns my constituents right now, besides the Conservatives' preoccupation with putting more people in prison, is affordable housing. Many of them feeling like prisoners in their own homes because of the high ratio of their incomes that goes into paying for their homes. Many of them cannot afford homes. The government is reducing the amount of money for low-income housing.

I am finding a little bit of a juxtaposition. I would ask my colleague what he feels should be done about affordable housing in communities.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I can understand the hon. member trying to bring other issues into the debate on drug-free prisons, but this government has contributed more toward social housing than any other previous government, and we are committed to continuing that through the years.

Does saying that it is laudable and that we will never get rid of all the drugs in prisons mean that we should just give up? The average Canadian has a difficult time understanding how someone can be in a prison and still get access to drugs. I know how they do it, because I speak to the men and women who work in our prisons almost every week when I go home to my riding. There are many ingenious ways this occurs. Without going into the particulars, let me just talk about the goal.

Yes, it is a laudable goal, and it is difficult for Canadians to understand why people who are in our prisons have access to a plethora of drugs. That makes the prisons that much more difficult to control. In other words, it is difficult for the average prisoners who do not take drugs to go about their daily lives when they have someone next to them in a violent condition or in a condition that is unmanageable.

It is our goal to make sure that we do our best to keep drugs out of prisons, because that is what is expected of us as the government. All we are asking is that the opposition work with us. When it comes to programming, I will wait for some input.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly appreciate my hon. colleague's message, and I wish him good luck in keeping drugs out of prisons, because to this day, it has not been overly successful.

About 80% of the people who enter the prison system have a drug addiction problem. It is okay to put in more detector dogs. I agree that we should do everything to stop drugs from going into a prison. We put the detector dogs in place and stop parole. However, I would like to know why the government is opposed to addiction programs.

We are dealing with human beings. Why not deal with the human being and try to deal with the addiction problem in the prison system? Why did the government close the only addiction research centre in the nation when over 80% of the people who are in our penal institutions have a drug or alcohol problem?

I wish that my hon. colleague would take a look at this situation and understand the value of research in the biggest problem in the penal institutions of this country. Would he not agree that we need research, and we need to have programs to deal with the people who are addicted in our system?

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am a member of the public safety committee. We have a desire as a committee and as a government to see what else is happening in the world when we talk about drugs and alcohol in our prisons, and also mental illness, which is a tremendous problem. We understand that. We went across Canada to see what best practices work from one institution to another that we could import to or suggest for other Canadian institutions.

We then went overseas to Great Britain and Norway. In Norway, one of the questions I asked one of the top officials was what kind of programming they had. They mentioned some programs. I asked if they had ever adopted any Canadian programs. He said that yes, about 60% of their programs they had adopted from Canada. We are leaders when it comes to that.

When it comes to alcohol and addiction programs, we also have those programs in our institutions, and we have also, as a government, invested greatly in—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Unfortunately, we went a little bit over in the time provided for questions and comments, but we will resume debate.

The hon. member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on Bill C-12, an act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, the drug-free prisons act.

If members heard me speaking yesterday on the private member's bill, Bill C-483, they might think I would be happier today than I was yesterday. I was criticizing the Conservatives' use of private members' bills to amend the Criminal Code and the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, because using private members' bills avoids the scrutiny of charter compliance, results in less debate in the House of Commons and results in a piecemeal approach, amending various pieces of legislation without actually seeing what has happened with the previous amendments. I guess I am happier today because it is a government bill, so we will have more time to debate the bill. It has been scrutinized for its adherence to the charter and it probably avoids a piecemeal approach in that it has been examined by the department before being presented.

Then why am I not really happy this morning in comparison? It is because the bill illustrates yet another unfortunate tendency of the Conservatives, and that is a fondness for propagandistic titles that obscure the real content of the bill. This is much like Bill C-2, which is called respect for communities act, when in fact it is the opposite. Communities that want to set up safe injection sites to try to reduce the harm caused by the injection of drugs will be prevented by the provisions of Bill C-2 from actually doing so. Therefore, how is that respect for communities? It is directly the opposite.

This bill has an even wilder title. I would say that if we are ever doing a documentary on the legislative process and we use this as an example, the documentary should be called, “A Title in Search of a Bill”. The Conservatives are wanting to send out to their members a piece of mail that would help them fundraise that says, “We passed a bill for drug-free prisons”, but when we look inside the bill, there is very little, if anything, that contributes to the goal of drug-free prisons. I really do suspect the title has more to do with Conservative Party fundraising than it does to getting good public policy for prisons.

The public safety committee, of which I am the vice-chair, did a study on drugs and alcohol in federal prisons and more than 20 witnesses appeared at the committee. I did not agree with the government's report, in which the government produced 14 recommendations on drug-free prisons. However, in its bill on drug-free prisons not one of those recommendations, their own recommendations, appears. Instead, it is something else that appears in the bill. It is passing strange to me why the House of Commons committee would spend weeks hearing from dozens of expert witnesses and then the government would ignore that and introduce something completely different from that.

Maybe I should be happy because what is proposed in the bill is, in fact, a very modest change in the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, which simply makes more clear in law what is already the existing practice of the Parole Board. It says that the Parole Board of Canada can make use of positive results from drug tests or refusals to take urine tests for drugs when it makes decisions on parole eligibility. It already does this. It is just not clear in law, so this has a positive impact.

Giving clear legal authority to an existing practice is something New Democrats can support, so we are placed in an odd spot in the House of Commons. If we were voting on the title, we would vote against it, but the content of the bill we will actually support. Therefore, we will support the bill going to second reading and will be proposing a more realistic title. I am having trouble thinking of anything that could compete with a slogan such as “drug-free prisons”, but I guess what we are going to look for is something that would actually tell the public what happens in the bill.

As I have said many times, drug-free prisons are, at best, a worthy aspiration, and at worst, simply a political slogan. It is not a policy. Saying we have a policy of drug-free prisons is like saying we have a policy against rainy days during our vacation. We cannot have a policy for drug-free prisons. We have to attack the addiction problem in prisons.

We are in an unfortunate situation in this country where 80% of those who end up in federal custody have drug or alcohol problems. What do we do about that? The Conservatives, instead of having a really meaningful debate with us in the opposition, try to set up straw men and propose and tell the public what our policy is. Part of that is, I think, because they know the public does not really accept their policy, so they want to create phantoms for us to debate in the House of Commons.

The Conservatives are very quick to say that we are somehow condoning drug use or are soft on drugs on this side of the House. In fact, what we are saying on this side of the House is that we have to do things that would actually be effective in combatting the drug problem in prison and that would actually have better outcomes for the prisoners. It is not because we love the prisoners but it is because on this side of the House we are interested in public safety.

If people leave our prison system still addicted to drugs or alcohol, they will fall right back into the patterns that got them into prison in the first place. They will create more victims in our communities, and they will become victimized by their addiction.

In fact, we on this side of the House are not soft on drugs. We want an effective policy on drugs. Being tough on drugs is really much like being for drug-free prisons. Being tough on drugs accomplishes nothing.

The Conservative approach to drugs, both in and out of prison, is very consistent. They start with moral condemnation and then they finish with interdiction. It is the same approach that has inspired Bill C-2. We talk about safe injection sites, and the Conservatives say injectable drugs are bad and therefore we are going to try to prevent people from having a place where they can safely inject those drugs. It is moral condemnation followed by interdiction. It ignores the reality in terms of harm reduction.

The Conservatives did a mailing on Bill C-2, saying “Let's prevent having needles in your backyard.” What do safe injection sites do? That is exactly what they do. They place people in safe injection sites so the needles do not end up in alleyways, school playgrounds or backyards. The Conservatives are actually doing quite the opposite of what they say they are doing.

When we look at the things that the Conservatives have tried to do on their goal of drug-free prisons since 2008, we see they have spent more than $122 million on interdiction tools. That includes technology, such as ion sniffers, and sniffer dogs to try to stop drugs from entering the prisons.

What did we find? The head of corrections came to the committee during our study on drugs and alcohol in prisons, and interestingly this part of the testimony does not appear in the government's report. He said that after spending $122 million and doing drug testing, the same percentage of prisoners tested positive as before the interdiction measures.

We wasted $122 million on technology and sniffer dogs, instead of spending $122 million on addiction treatment programs. If we want to get drugs out of prison, we have to reduce the demand for drugs in prison by offering people treatment programs.

I have to say there was a very unfortunate side effect of this emphasis on interdiction, and that was that it interfered with family visits. One of the things we know is very important, both to those who are going to reintegrate into the community and especially those with addictions, is family support.

At the time, the Conservatives criticized us for bringing this up, but what happened was that many family members felt the sniffer dogs facing them every time they tried to visit and bring their children was an intimidation factor that made it very difficult for them to visit. Even worse, the ion scanners produced an inordinate number of false positives. Many family members who would have nothing to do drugs at all were prevented from visiting their relatives in prison because of the false positives of this technology, which really does not work in terms of interdiction.

Therefore, spending the $122 million wasted money and interfered with family visits, and it interfered with rehabilitation programs. However, it is very consistent with the Conservative policy on drugs.

I guess we should have known this kind of thing was coming because in 2007 the Conservatives amended the national drug strategy. They took out one of the goals. The goal that they took out of the national drug strategy was harm reduction. It is very shocking. We actually removed harm reduction as one of the goals of our national drug strategy. Why? It is because the Conservative policy, again, is moral condemnation followed by interdiction, and it ignores the reality.

[An hon. member]

How about the mayor of Toronto?

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

I know some members are talking about some other very prominent people involved with drugs, especially in Toronto, who have not taken advantage of the treatment programs available and who have continued in office when many of us believe they ought not to.

However, we have to turn back to the question. If we are going to have a bill entitled drug-free prisons, then let us go back and look at why drugs are in the prisons. Again we come back to the fact that 80% of those convicted of criminal offences resulting in more than two years in prison have drug and alcohol problems.

What has been the major contributor to that? It is mandatory minimum sentences, another great Tory policy when it comes to drug-free prisons.

The real problem is not criminal behaviour. The real problem is social disorder caused by drug and alcohol problems. When someone appears before a judge and he or she may have drug or alcohol problems, the Conservatives want to take away the discretion of the judge to divert that person into a treatment program, and instead make him or her serve time because they are tough on drugs.

All that does, in fact, is put more addicts into prison and create a higher demand for drugs in prison.

When we talk about the lack of treatment, because of the way Corrections Canada keeps statistics on programming, it is difficult to identify, specifically, the number of those on waiting lists for addiction treatment. However, we know it is somewhere between 2,400 and 3,000 of those 15,000 people in prisons. Many of those prisoners will complete their sentences without ever getting the addiction treatment, and as I said earlier, they will end up back in the community, back in their old patterns, victimizing themselves and others, because of addiction.

In the parliamentary secretary's speech to open this debate, she talked about 2.7% of corrections funding going to programming.

Let us stop to think about that for a minute; 2.7% of the funding is going to programming. That means, really, what we are doing is warehousing our prisoners. As well, that is not addiction programming, that is all programming. That is all the training. That is all the rehabilitation. That 2.7% of the total budget is all the drug programming combined.

What is happening to the budget of public safety and specifically of corrections? The Conservatives, in the last budget, cut that budget by 10%. Cutting that budget by 10% at a time when the number of people who are being imprisoned is increasing because of the various Conservative mandatory minimum sentence and longer sentencing initiatives means that we are cutting the budget by 10% when the population in prison is increasing by about 5% every year.

The Conservatives like to stand to say, “Oh, no. We'll take the highest estimates anybody ever gave, the highest projections we ever had for prison, and we'll point out to you those were never achieved”. That is to try to cover up the fact that the prison population is steadily increasing. Therefore, there are more people in prison, more people with addictions, less money and less programming. How in the world would this contribute to drug-free prisons?

The other thing that happens as a result of the increasing numbers and the decreasing budget is reduced training opportunities in prison.

Why am I talking about training opportunities and drug addiction in the same breath?

One of the problems that people have in prison is not having enough to do. There is an old saying that idle hands do the devil's work. Why in the world are we cutting back on training opportunities in prison?

The federal institution in my riding, William Head, has now lost the carpentry apprenticeship program. Why did it lose that? It was because of cutbacks. When the instructor retired, he was not replaced. Therefore, we have no more carpentry apprenticeship program.

We know that in all of the provinces across the country we have severe shortages in the trades. There are great opportunities for people to get employment when they get out of prison. We could keep them occupied in prison with a very useful training program that would result in employment that might keep them out of poverty and addiction problems when they get out. However, because of budget cuts, we do not replace the instructor when he retires.

William Head has a very good electrical apprenticeship program. The bad news is that the instructor is just about to retire. What will happen when he retires? It is very clear. It has already been announced; he will not be replaced. Now we will lose the electrical apprenticeship program, as well as the carpentry apprenticeship program.

To me, if we are really talking about how to do what is best for public safety, what is best for the community, and yes, in this case, what is also best for those who have offended, we are going in completely the wrong direction.

Part of the problem, we know, is that for addicts in prison, where there is a will there is a way. The Conservatives have tried to devise technology and other interdiction methods that would stop drugs from getting into prisons. That is probably a hopeless task. Even if we could interdict drugs, then prisoners would resort to the use of other substances, which would be even more damaging to them in that prison setting. They would make homemade alcohol, which will sometimes cause very serious injury, blindness or death. They would find a way.

One of the other things that has contributed to drugs in prison is an unusual one, and that is the Conservatives' fascination with privatization. Let me draw the connection for people who would not see it immediately.

Conservatives would like to have things like laundry, food service and cleaning in the prison contracted out. That is happening more and more across the country. That brings low-paid workers into the prison system, who are not hired by Correctional Service Canada, who only have the most basic screening and, because they are most often paid the minimum wage, are in very vulnerable positions. We have had many examples already where the path to drugs in prison comes through those private sector employees who come through the gate everyday. It is very easy for criminal gangs to identify who those people are. I am not saying these are evil people. It is very easy for them to be identified, for pressure to be put on their families and for them to bring drugs into prison. We have had many examples of privatization actually leading to an increase in the drug supply in prisons.

I will go ahead and talk a bit more about the problem of reduced budget.

One of the things Correctional Service Canada has had to do is try to find more efficient ways of delivering programming. Regarding the programs that the member for Northumberland—Quinte West liked to point to that were adopted around the world, there is not enough money for those programs to be run in our prisons anymore. Therefore, the corrections officials have taken what were separate anger management, drug addiction and other of those initial programs and they have rolled them together into one program that inmates will initially go through. This program tries to deal with all of these problems at the same time. I wish the designers of the program well, and I hope that it works. However, I am very concerned that we are, for fiscal reasons, taking those programs, which were so effective in dealing with some of the problems that people came into prison with, combining them into one program and doing an experiment in our prisons to see if that works as well as those programs we know were very effective programs that were adopted in places like Norway and were seen around the world as exemplary kinds of programs.

Another program that has been reduced or eliminated in many of the institutions in Ontario is called CORCAN. It provided vocational kinds of training so when people got out of prison, they could escape the circumstances that led them perhaps into addiction and therefore into crime.

However, the other thing the Conservatives have done is questioned why prisoners who take part in this training are paid. They have suggested we take away the pay for participating in CORCAN. This was not high pay, not even minimum wage pay, but it is an incentive for prisoners to get involved in the CORCAN training programs, which will lead them to better opportunities in their new life outside prison.

In fact, we have had a situation going on in Canadian prisons where we have had work stoppages because of the low pay that is offered to prisoners who do meaningful work while they are in prison. Because of this straw man, the Conservatives like to parade about the luxurious conditions in prison, at the same time, they have increased the number of items that prisoners have to pay for themselves. I think many Canadians would be surprised to know prisoners have to buy their own soap, toothpaste and shampoo out of the very minimal amount they are paid for work in prison.

The Conservatives like to draw a picture, saying that no one pays for their toothpaste or shampoo, but my point is not that they should not have to pay for these things, but that when they do work in the prison system, they should be able to earn enough money so they can pay for those basic necessities.

Once again, coming back to what our real policies are on this side of the House, and not the straw man the Conservatives like to put up, the NDP has always been steadfast in our support for measures that will make our prisons safe. The Conservative government has ignored recommendations from the corrections staff, the corrections union and the correctional investigator, all of these recommendations that were aimed at decreasing violence, gang activity and drug use in our prison.

Stakeholders agree that the bill would have a minimal impact on drugs in prison. Therefore, those who have listened to my speech will know I am not opposed to what is being proposed in the bill. What I am opposed to is the propaganda of its title and the whole Conservative approach of moral condemnation followed by interdiction, instead of measures that would really attack the drug problem in our prisons and our society.

What we really need to do is focus on addiction programming in our prisons if we want to achieve or move toward the goal of drug-free prisons.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have a few comments. When we have an argument that we want to get across and we are to agree with a person that we really do not want to agree with, what do we do? We make a joke about it. We make fun of it and we belittle it. It degrades what we are trying to do, so we belittle it.

Then we go to another tact and say that there they go, being moralistic again. God forbid anybody in this place should have any morals. Yes, we do have morals. Everyone in this chamber has morals. There is nothing wrong with putting some morality and some of those issues into law, the way we do things and how we act. The opposition says that the government is overly moralistic, which is why it does this and it is tough on that.

One of the other things is that they are trying to keep drugs out of prisons. It is really being hard on families and some of the families do not like to come, but that is how some of the drugs are getting into our prisons, through conjugal visits. It is so bad when they say that they do not want to have their kids exposed to these little electronic instruments, but that is how some of the drugs are getting in. They are in the diapers of children, where the guards cannot go. We are told that. They even admit it.

There is much more to talk about than I have time for, but I wish that for once, if the opposition members are going to support something, they would just say they are going to support it. They do not like us or agree with us, but they are going to support it.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have worked with the member for Northumberland—Quinte West on committee and he knows that it is not about me not liking or respecting him. I do respect his experience. I differ with him on the proper solutions.

I am sorry if he felt ridiculed by the beginning of my speech, but a bill entitled “drug-free prisons” that has nothing in it to accomplish drug-free prisons is legitimately subject to some ridicule.

When he says that I object to them having morals, no I do not. Of course we all have moral standards. What I am saying is that moral condemnations do not produce results. That is my problem with the overall Conservative approach to drugs and, in particular, this bill. Calling it a drug-free prison bill is more of that moral condemnation, which is very ineffective in dealing with our real problems.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the hon. member's speech and he made some very valid points. I wanted to ask him, with a view to the last question he just answered about morality, does he believe that addiction is a chronic, relapsing medical condition and therefore should not be subject to morality any more than we should judge people who are diabetics?

This is a grey issue with regard to the issue of the amount of dopamine that people make in their brains, which makes them an addict or not. To treat addiction, instead of with public health concerns and public health policies, does the member agree that it should be treated as a medical condition and not as a crime and punishment is issue?

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, perhaps this is something I neglected to say in my conclusion due to running out of time, but I could not agree more with the member. Addiction is a health problem.

One of the things we have seen with Bill C-2, which deals with safe injection sites, is that instead of going to the health committee for study, it is being sent to the public safety committee. This somehow implies that safe injection sites are a threat to public safety and public health, instead of a support to public safety and an important measure to improve public health.

What I am saying about morality is that I do not object to the Conservatives having morality. I object to them trying to apply their morality to problems that will not be solved by moral condemnation because they are not moral problems, they are addiction problems.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, Conservatives stand in the House and talk about their management of the economy and how wonderful they are doing in regard to creating jobs. The facts are that it is under the current government that we have had the largest deficit and have accumulated hundreds of billions of dollars in debt.

When the Conservatives formed government, we had a $26 billion surplus in trade. Now we have $62 billion in trade deficits. This is their economic record.

The reason I brought that up is that in 2008, the government put in $122 million into interdictions in prisons. What effect did that $122 million have or could we have used that $122 million somewhere else where we could have received more benefits?

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Surrey North for his participation in the study on drugs in prisons, which was done at committee.

The $122 million, as the head of Correctional Service Canada said, was wasted. At the end of this, we have the same number of prisoners testing positive for drugs as we did at the beginning.

I want to go back to something the member for Northumberland—Quinte West raised, implying that I supported family members smuggling drugs into prison. Of course, I do not. What I object to is the same thing I talked about yesterday, and that is the Conservatives' tendency to take the extreme examples and make the rule from it.

Most of the families that are visiting prisoners with addiction problems want nothing more than for those relatives to conquer those addiction problem, come home to them and be a productive and useful member of their own community. Singling out the exceptional and trying to make policy on that basis is something to which I always object.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, this subject is one which my colleague in his speech has dealt with incredibly well because when we look at the results of the Conservative program over the last number of years in the interdiction of drugs in prisons, it has been very unsuccessful.

Does my colleague want to take that argument further into how those funds could better have been put into programs that would lead to rehabilitation, that would lead to a decline in drug and hard drug use in prisons?

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the question from the member for Western Arctic gets right to the heart of the matter, which is that we have a shortage of funding in our prison system right now for addiction treatment programs.

Again, if we want to reduce the presence of drugs in prison, in my view and in the view of the people we heard at committee, we need to reduce the demand for drugs in prison by providing addiction treatment programs.

The $122 million would have gone a long way to closing that gap of the waiting list, which is somewhere between 2,500 and 3,000 prisoners who need addiction treatment programs. It would have gone a long way to filling that gap and would have been much more effective than wasting it on this effort at interdiction.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is an interesting bill that we have before us. It is something the Conservative Party is fairly good at. They have someone working in the Prime Minister's Office whose job is quite simple: come up with creative names for bills to make the Conservatives look good in the eyes of the public. Whether it is reflected in the bill or the substance of the legislation is somewhat irrelevant; the PMO staffer's primary goal is to get that communication piece out.

So what has the PMO said today on Bill C-12?

Well, the message it wants to get out to Canadians is “drug-free prisons”. This is what it wants to achieve. Some on that side might actually applaud, but one questions if it is possible to achieve what the government is trying to give the impression to Canadians that it is going to achieve. I do not believe it is possible.

I believe that if one were to canvass individuals who have the expertise, which obviously is lacking on the government benches, one would find out that in fact it is not achievable. However, do not let that confuse the member who came up with the idea in the Prime Minister's Office, because that conflicts with the message the Conservatives are hoping to give Canadians, albeit somewhat false.

That said, interestingly, there was an observation made in the 2011-2012 annual report from the Correctional Investigator with respect to the prevalence of drugs within our prisons, and I quote:

A “zero-tolerance” stance to drugs in prison, while perhaps serving an effective deterrent posted at the entry point of a penitentiary, simply does not accord with the facts of crime and addiction in Canada or elsewhere in the world.

This is not coming from a member of the Liberal caucus, but from stakeholders out there in the real world, and that is part of the problem. We need to get more of the staff inside the PMO to get out into the real world to get a better understanding of reality.

I had the opportunity to tour many of Canada's penitentiaries and retention centres, and I believe there is plenty of room for improvement. Let there be no doubt that there is a lot of room for improvement. I for one will not object to moving forward, but I think we have to take the issue of addiction—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I am sorry to interrupt. The hon. member will have sixteen and a half minutes remaining for his remarks when the House next resumes debate on the motion.

The House resumed from consideration of the motion that Bill C-12, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. member for Winnipeg North had sixteen and a half minutes remaining for his remarks, and of course he will have the usual ten minutes for questions and comments.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Winnipeg North.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise to address issues inside the House of Commons, and it is a privilege to do so.

In the legislation we have before us today, I started by talking about the name of the bill and the impression it is attempting to leave with people. I find it difficult to accept it at face value. What is the real motive behind the government bringing forward this legislation?

I represent a wonderful riding, as all MPs no doubt proclaim they do. However, there are many different challenges that our country faces as a nation. One of the greatest challenges we have is related to the issue of addictions. Addictions are very serious. Because we are not aggressively pursuing ways we could deal with that issue in a very proactive way, I believe we are doing a disservice.

Given the very nature and the seriousness of addictions, I believe there is a need for strong federal national leadership to work with the different stakeholders, in particular the provinces, to come up with some solutions to those problems. I do not believe there is anything within this legislation that would do that. It is not addressing the problem of addictions.

I have a great deal of respect for my colleague, the Liberal Party critic for health care. She is exceptionally knowledgeable about the issue of addictions. I have had the opportunity to listen to her on numerous occasions as she has described the issues surrounding addiction.

I am nowhere near as knowledgeable as she is on this addictions file. I want to bring it to the table from a constituency level, from the average person who is working and quite often has a difficult time managing, the middle class. We have not talked enough about the impact that policies and discussions have on our middle class and whether we can do more. I believe we can and we should be doing more.

Bill C-12 is all about addictions and what we are doing for a prisoner who is released from a penitentiary and returning to a public environment. The legislation talks about instituting some requirements, testing to find out whether there is substance abuse prior to release. There will be a lot of debate about that. Whether it is a justice critic or a health critic, both of them will contribute to that aspect of the debate at great length.

My frustration is that I do not believe we are doing enough outside of our prisons to deal with this issue. I would challenge the government on that. It needs to take a more holistic approach to dealing with abuse of drugs and the negative consequences.

Our prisons have literally thousands of people who are addicted to drugs or alcohol prior to their entering those institutions. Many would argue that it might even be the cause of them being in those institutions. That is just a small percentage of what is in our communities.

From what I can tell when I look at the legislation, it would do nothing to deal with the issue of addiction. That is what is so disappointing. If the Conservatives are serious, they should develop the necessary programs so that when people are leaving our federal or provincial detention institutions they go into an environment that is going to assist them in staying away from these addictive drugs. I see the consequences and the impact it has on our communities far too often.

We were talking earlier about other legislation regarding safe injection sites. Here is a good example of where government says there is a problem and it is going to attempt to deal with the problem. It is that approach that the Conservatives need to start considering in terms of resolving many different issues that face our society, whether it is in prison or outside of prison.

What has happened in terms of the injection site is to first identify the problem. In prisons, there is a great deal of alcohol and drug abuse. We know that. It is a high percentage. I will go through some of the numbers shortly, but well above 50% of the prison population experience some form of abuse of alcohol, drugs or other chemicals. That abuse does not necessarily originate from within the prison walls. It comes, in most cases I would suggest, from the communities prior to the inmate entering prison. What are we doing in regards to that?

Let us use the example of another piece of legislation. Remember the injection site? Canada has one injection site. That is not something that was thought of out of the blue, to establish it and put it up in Vancouver. That was not the case. There were numerous individuals who recognized that Vancouver had serious issues surrounding addiction and that if they could have a safe injection site they would be able to assist in preventing crimes, assist addicted individuals, and ultimately make a safer community for people to live.

I was very sympathetic to that. I would rather see the paraphernalia that comes with some of these heroin injections in a controlled environment, as opposed to inner city back lanes or schoolyards. It is not just inner city; it even happens in the suburbs. I have seen what I believe were exchanges of drugs in parking lots, which I have been told by constituents to watch out for. There is proper notification that it is prevalent, and not just in the inner cities.

The damage that is caused is horrendous, not only to the individuals who are using the drugs, but also to the environment in which they are injecting these chemicals into their systems. That is not to even mention what might be happening in order for them to acquire the drug itself.

We have these stakeholders who identify an issue and then they work on the problem with the different levels of government, including Ottawa, the Province, the city and different stakeholders. I am suggesting that we need to use that mentality of co-operation in working with the stakeholders, including the provinces, to try to deal with problems.

I would point out that this was a specific problem outside the prison system and we saw a solution. We had great co-operation, and something was put into place as a direct result. In speaking with the critic for health, she took great pride in this. Former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, and others, as I said the provincial and municipal leaders and many different stakeholders, turned it into a reality. They addressed the problem.

I would suggest that is what we should be doing in dealing with our prisons. We need to identify what the problem truly is. We already have a good sense of that. There have been many reports and many debates.

I do not think anything I am saying this afternoon is earth-shattering. A lot of it is common sense. The people I represent apply common sense to a lot of the issues we have. We might need to start talking a lot more in terms of common sense inside the House of Commons.

We need to start recognizing that there are some simple things, along with some fairly complicated things, that need to happen within our prison systems. It is not just that someone has been found guilty and that because the person has some sort of addiction issue by putting him or her in jail the issue disappears.

If we believe that is the case, we should start talking to some of the correctional officers. These are people on the front line who have not broken any laws. They are protecting our communities and providing a service to all Canadians, even people within the institutions. If we took the time to talk to the correctional officers, they would acknowledge up front that there are serious issues in dealing with drugs and alcohol within our prison system.

I started my comments before question period on this issue about the title of the bill. It makes me wonder why the government has chosen to bring forward the legislation. It is Bill C-12, an act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. It sounds like a reasonable name for a bill. Of course, the Conservatives brand their legislation. I call it the stamp of approval from the PMO.

The stamp of approval on this piece of legislation is the drug-free prisons act. It builds up this huge expectation and causes a great deal of concern in terms of how the government might attempt to do this.

We probably have stakeholders from around the world who would say it is not possible to make a prison completely drug-free or alcohol-free. It would be interesting to hear witnesses who come before committee provide their input as to why they think that might be possible. We do not think it is.

I believe what we want is a government that is proactive or aggressive at dealing with the issues of addiction within our prisons. That is really what we want. I am all for protecting potential future victims from crime. Trust me, I would debate that issue any day with anyone, outside or inside the House. However, I am also interested in debating the issue of substance with regard to drug and alcohol addictions.

If we can come up with programs that are solid and sound and that we can deliver within our prison system, I tell the House that we will have less crime on the streets of our cities and municipalities of all sizes. The challenge is to come up with the right types of programs to make a difference. It might not get us the headlines we want, but it will have a real, tangible impact in terms of decreasing crime in our communities.

That is what I am interested in. That is what the Liberal Party of Canada wants. We want fewer victims, and the best way to achieve that goal is by ensuring that we have programs that will have an impact.

Where, in Bill C-12, is there any movement toward a program that is going to deal with that issue? That is not something we see in the government's legislation. One would ultimately ask, why not? However, the direction the government is taking is moving us away from that.

Again, I will emphasize that I sympathize with and I will fight for victims of crime, but I am also going to fight to prevent victims. With good, strong, healthy programs, we can make a difference. This is something on which the Government of Canada needs to be challenged to start producing, because it has fallen short in providing substantial programs that will make a difference in the communities we live in and represent and make them safer places to be. That is the challenge.

We have the name of the bill. We will see what happens when it goes to committee. I look forward to getting feedback from our health critic and our public safety critic. I look forward to what ultimately happens with the bill.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly heard the hon. member's comments, as I have heard many thousands of words of comments in the House over this last while, and I do appreciate his concern and his apparent knowledge on almost everything. However, he mentioned a keyword that I find a little bit disturbing in that I happen to have a great deal of regard for it, and I would hope that he would too. That keyword is common sense.

He said that we must use common sense. Where is the common sense in supplying needles to addicts in a penal institution? Where is the common sense in going to an aboriginal elementary school and promoting the legalization of a controlled substance that is clearly illegal?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, one of the privileges that I have had is the opportunity to serve for about 20 years in the Manitoba legislature. I was afforded the opportunity to play many different roles, such as justice critic, education critic, and health critic over the years, so I have had the privilege to get a fairly good understanding of the types of policies and issues that affect people on the streets in our communities.

I believe that when I get the opportunity to share that experience with members, it is important that I do so, especially by emphasizing the extent to which Liberals recognize the importance of having proactive, strong, healthy policy. I am talking about policy based on facts and science as opposed to policy based on ideology, which is the only kind of policy the Conservatives tend to develop.

We can use marijuana as an example. We recognize that millions of dollars go to gangs as a direct result of marijuana. If we want to try to fight gang activities, there are other ways that we can look at it. The Conservative government has absolutely failed. The number of people participating in gangs has skyrocketed, and the number continues to grow.

The leader of the Liberal Party comes out with an announcement that is going to take tens of millions of dollars, if not hundreds of millions, out of the pockets of these gangs, but the Conservatives want to support these gangs receiving this illegal money. We are not talking about a few dollars. We are serious about fighting gangs in Canada because they are wreaking havoc in every region of our country.

The key is opening the mind to good, solid policy ideas that are going to make a difference. It could even be Conservatives. We have a Progressive Conservative who—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Acadie—Bathurst.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, let us look at drug related problems. We cannot stick our heads in the sand and pretend they do not exist. British Columbia has clinics where people can go to get their drugs.

It seems as though it is a crime to do that. At least, that is what the Conservative government seems to think.

Does my colleague agree that if we acknowledge the problem, two things could happen? First, we would stop the spread of disease. Second, we could work with these people to help them deal with their problems. That is a possibility.

If we stick our heads in the sand in order to avoid the problem, it will persist. Instead, we must help these people.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it would be wonderful to see us as a House do a study on the safe injection site and what has happened in Vancouver. If we conducted something of that nature, I believe we would get a really good understanding of many of the consequences and have good, solid policy ideas moving forward.

I want to conclude my remarks by referring back to the whole marijuana issue. That is because I read the story in regard to the Conservative member of Parliament who went to a school and said that he supports legalizing marijuana.

I realize that is a bit outside of the PMO bubble, so he is now probably going to be punished as result of making that statement. However, at the end of the day, I suspect that if we canvassed the Conservative members and they were allowed to be outside the PMO bubble, we would find that there are legitimate arguments for it, such as taking millions and millions of dollars away from gangs and using that money to minimize the addiction issues that Canada faces today.

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's sensitivity on the issue of marijuana, but I would like to get back to the question at hand.

As my colleagues have indicated, we will be supporting the bill moving on to second reading, but we are concerned that this will do very little to actually deal with the problem of drugs in the prison system. In fact, as I think others have said, it shows a lack of action and commitment not unlike what we saw from the Liberal government when it was in power.

There is so much to do and it is so important that we focus our attention. We have talked a lot about the public safety approach that will actually reduce recidivism rates and prevent more victims, and we have talked about other measures that will get to the problem and begin to put some solutions down.

As the member wraps up his time in this debate, would he indicate what kept the Liberals, when they were in government, from moving forward and taking action on this issue, as was the case with so many other issues?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I do not necessarily agree with the member. After all, this injection site has been highly acclaimed. Even members of his own caucus have recognized that what is happening in Vancouver at InSite shows that it is an excellent program.

That program is a Liberal initiative. When the member says that the Liberal Party did not do anything, all he has to do is talk to the members who have been talking so wonderfully positively, and rightly so, about the InSite program.

Is there a need for more? Absolutely. I would love to see a high number of competing ideas brought forward to the House of Commons. I think we need to do a whole lot more. The Liberal Party critic on health care said to me, “Kevin, we should have this bill going before the health committee, not the public safety committee.”

There is a lot of merit in that idea. Why, indeed, is it going to the public safety committee, as opposed to the health committee? The issue of addiction is huge. Maybe we need to have some of those stakeholders from Vancouver come and make a presentation and talk about the success stories of that initiative that Mr. Chrétien and others were involved in a number of years ago.

Let us get a competition of ideas to deal with the issue of addiction. If we do that and we are successful, I would argue that not only will we be saving lives but we will be making the communities we live in safer and better places to be.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

Mr. Speaker, today I am going to be sharing my time with the hon. member, a very capable member, I might add, for Medicine Hat.

I rise today as a former police officer and as a person with five institutions in my proximity: Millhaven, the former Kingston Penitentiary, Joyceville, Warkworth, and Pittsburgh. Today I rise with some personal knowledge about the very challenging issue of drugs in federal prisons.

Our government has worked diligently to establish Canada as a country where those who break the law are held accountable for their actions and where the rights of victims are respected. This ensures that we have a strong correctional system that actually rehabilitates prisoners. To this end, we have taken strong action to tackle the problem of drugs in prison, which is, obviously, a significant roadblock to correcting the behaviour of prisoners and to the safety, of course, of correctional officers.

The reality is that prisoners should not have access to illegal drugs or substances while serving their sentences. While the NDP seems to disagree, unfortunately, and would have us provide needles to prisoners, Canadians agree that drugs have absolutely no place behind bars.

The Correctional Service of Canada has a wide range of interdiction measures in place to search out, seize, and detect drugs in institutions, and it has had some successes. However, we can certainly always improve, and that is why our government is drawing a firm line with this bill.

Almost 1,500 drug seizures take place in prisons each year, and more than 1,700 institutional sanctions have been imposed on prisoners for positive drug tests or a refusal to take drug tests. These numbers underscore the drug problem in prisons. It cannot be underestimated. Not only does the sale and use of drugs in prisons adversely affect our chance of correcting criminal behaviour, it certainly poses a threat to the safety of the staff. That is why our government, in its 2011 election platform, made a strong commitment to do even more about this problem.

We set the bar very high when we made three key promises. Number one was that every federal inmate would undergo drug testing once yearly. Is that too much to ask? Number two was that prisoners in possession of illegal substances would face additional and appropriate charges. Is that too much to ask? Number three was that parole applicants who failed these drug tests would be denied parole. They should not be rewarded for illicit, illegal actions.

We have moved forward with these measures to help us achieve these ambitious goals. We have made much progress, particularly with respect to addressing the first two promises.

We have invested heavily in broader interdiction measures. In 2008, we provided $122 million over five years for interdiction efforts, efforts that included drug detector dogs, security intelligence capacity, and perimeter security. Obviously, institutions are less safe and secure when there are drugs and other contraband, so this has turned out to be a very smart investment.

More recently, we complemented this investment with important changes under the Safe Streets and Communities Act that enshrined in law the role of the prisoners' correctional plans. The Safe Streets and Communities Act also introduced two-year mandatory minimum penalties for trafficking drugs in prisons or on prison grounds.

The CSC has recently brought in a number of vital institutional measures that are under way at present. It has increased random monthly urinalysis testing of prisoners. That is amazing. That is one of our most effective detection measures, by the way, and it has increased from 5% to 10%.

CSC is improving data collection on drug use in prisons. It is preparing regulatory amendments to increase fines for inmates possessing or using illicit drugs, with further increases for repeat prisoners. It has also introduced mandatory reporting of all serious incidents of drug possession to the appropriate law enforcement agencies in those jurisdictions.

In an effort to augment CSC's interdiction efforts, Bill C-12, the drug-free prisons act, proposes an important legislative change, another step in our improvement, one that will allow us to fulfill the third of our 2011 platform commitments, which is to deny parole to those prisoners who fail drug tests.We want to provide members of the Parole Board of Canada with additional legislative tools to deny prisoners parole in cases involving failed or refused urinalysis tests. Two changes are required to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act in this regard.

The first is an amendment to add specific authority to cancel parole based on failed or refused urinalysis tests. This means that between the time a prisoner has been granted parole and is released, the CSC would be required to get information on urinalysis to the Parole Board. The Parole Board would then have an opportunity to change or modify its decision and to change or cancel the parole should the new information alter its assessment of the prisoner's risk to the community.

The second is an amendment to include specific authority for the board to impose a special condition requiring the prisoner to abstain from drugs and alcohol. This would apply to prisoners for whom substance abuse had been long identified as the leading factor in that prisoner's criminal behaviour. This would focus the board's attention on this factor, and when the condition was applied, it would create an opportunity for parole to be revoked if the condition was violated.

By striving toward a drug-free environment, we hope to create a number of beneficial outcomes that contribute to successful rehabilitation, that ensure the safety and security of Canadian institutions and communities, and that further support our commitment to hold prisoners accountable for their actions.

We are taking the necessary steps to equip the Correctional Service of Canada and the Parole Board of Canada with the tools they need to tackle drug use in our prisons. We are proud of the substantial progress we have made in respect of our 2011 commitments. We are confident that the drug-free prisons act would take us another step even further down the road in addressing this significant societal problem.

While members of the other parties have pushed for relaxed laws on drugs, on needles in prisons, and promoting drugs in schools to our youth, we will continue with these common-sense measures. Canadians expect absolutely nothing less.

I am thankful for the opportunity today to express what is not only a platform and a party policy but a personal passion. I live and work in the areas where these kinds of illegal activities certainly contribute to the decline of what it means to be a respected Canadian who respects our laws, our challenges, our traditions, and the health and safety of our citizens.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member pointed out in his speech that the government allocated $122 million back in 2008 for the prison interdiction program. I want to ask what the result of that was, but I know that the member will not respond to that. Therefore, I will give him some facts.

The result was that the prisoners were tested in 2008 and then tested three years later. We spent $122 million of taxpayer money, but the results showed no difference. The number of prisoners who tested positive for drugs in 2008 was the same in 2011. These facts come from the Correctional Service of Canada itself. I was on the committee that studied drugs in prison, and it was the head of the Correctional Service of Canada who pointed out those figures.

Would the member not agree that spending $122 million was a waste of taxpayers' money, as it showed no effect on the number of prisoners with drugs in their blood?

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the answer is absolutely not. Granted, we have an equivalency. I believe that the rate was roughly 80% 10 years ago and it is roughly 80% now. However, the member is not thinking of the enormous amount of work we have put into identification. We now we have increased urinalysis. We now have sniffer dogs. We have more checks. We have increased areas of scrutiny through the entire system. We have now identified significantly more opportunities for measures where people have been abusing this privilege.

It might be like the member suggesting that if there were a number of police officers on the highway and then we took some of those officers away or left them the same but put another 5,000 vehicles on the highway, there would not be any difference in the level of infractions. That is wrong. The problem is still there. It is huge. The only way we can tackle it is one step and one issue at a time, and this would be a great step forward.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as usual, I did not get an answer.

The facts are very clear. We spent $122 million on drug interdiction programs in prison. The result was zero. There was no difference in urinalysis before the money was spent and three years after the money was spent.

We know what works. We heard from experts. We heard from the Correctional Investigator. We heard from many stakeholders throughout the community. The best way to deal with drugs in prison is on the demand side.

There is a law of diminishing returns. We can spend as much money as we want on the interdiction side, but we will not get results for our investment. The best way to deal with what is happening in our prisons is on the prevention side, on the rehabilitation side. However, we have seen long waiting periods for people to get into these programs.

What is the government doing to address the real issue on the demand side? That is what needs to be done. What has the Conservative government done to decrease the wait list for prisoners for the programs that will actually help them?

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

Mr. Speaker, where I will agree with the hon. member across the way is that this is not a panacea. This will not cure each and every problem we have with illicit drug use in the prisons. However, I can assure the hon. member, from having been there, done that, watched, seen, and worked with these people, that if we eliminate this kind of approach, we are simply acting with one of our hands tied behind our backs.

We need rehabilitation. We need interdiction. We need everything that is there. As I mentioned before, it is not a panacea, but it is one positive step along the way.

I am pleased, quite frankly, that the member's party, and other members of this House, have tentatively agreed to support this bill, in principle, moving forward. They recognize that it is a move that would make a difference. For that, we thank them, and we look forward to continued support as this bill moves through the House.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Prince Edward—Hastings for his insight into this important bill. As the chair of the public safety committee, he has some very important views to add and his comments earlier, being a former police officer.

It is a pleasure to have an opportunity to speak about this issue of grave concern to our Conservative government and to all Canadians: the use of drugs in our federal prisons.

As hon. members know, our government has a robust agenda in place to strengthen the laws so offenders are held accountable for their actions and to increase the voice of victims in the criminal justice system. To this end, since 2006 we have supported significant crime prevention programs and invested in a wide range of support services for victims of crimes and passed laws to ensure that sentences match the severity of the crime. We have also committed to bringing forward legislation and a victims bill of rights that would enshrine the rights of victims in law. The legislation before us, the drug-free prisons act, would build on this work.

Notably, it brings back to us one of the key parts of our crime and public safety agenda; that of increasing offender accountability. This push to hold offenders accountable for their crimes forms the basis of much of our correctional programming. This is apparent in the many bills we have introduced and passed.

Offender accountability is a prominent feature in many elements of the Safe Streets and Communities Act, which received royal assent in March 2012. In that comprehensive bill, our government made a number of changes to increase penalties and to place the onus on offenders to succeed in their own rehabilitation and reintegration into the community.

We introduced measures ensuring violent and repeat youth offenders would be held accountable for their actions and that the protection of society would be of paramount consideration.

We ended the use of house arrest and conditional sentences for those offenders convicted of serious and violent crimes. We made it the law that federal offenders would have expectations for their behaviours and objectives for meeting court ordered obligations, such as restitution to victims or child support.

We modernized the disciplinary system, creating new offences for offenders who had disrespectful and intimidating behaviours toward correctional staff.

We made certain that if authorized to be outside of an institution before the end of their sentence, offenders would be expected to continue on the right path. We did this by providing police officers with the power of arrest without warrant of an offender who appeared to be in breach of any condition related to the condition of his or her release.

We made it the law that offenders who received a new custodial sentence would automatically have their parole or statutory release suspended.

We changed the laws so those who committed serious crimes, like sexual offences related to a minor, would be no longer eligible to apply for a record suspension.

We ensured that the Parole Board of Canada could proceed with a parole review, even if the offender requested to withdraw his or her application within 14 days without a valid reason, thereby ensuring that the process would be serious and respectful of victims who planned to attend the hearing.

These are common sense measures that Canadians want and commitments that we are delivering on.

In the last session, a private member's bill put forward by my hon. colleague, the member for Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, was introduced to ensure that offenders would be held responsible for paying their debts to creditors, such as victims with restitution orders, when they received payment from the Crown.

We recently saw the coming into force of the Increasing Offenders' Accountability for Victims Act which would double the victims' surcharge that offenders must pay and would ensure that the surcharge was automatically applied in all cases.

It is clear that we have made progress in increasing offender accountability for a wide range of crimes and in a wide range of situations.

The importance of offender accountability applies equally to the topic at hand: drug use in federal prisons. Our government has taken decisive steps to remove drugs from our federal penitentiaries. In 2007, the Correctional Service Canada, or CSC, adopted a transformation agenda to address areas of concern within our correctional system. Among those areas was that of eliminating drugs from institutions. A consistent national approach was implemented to manage who and what was entering our institutions. New search and surveillance technology, including additional drug protection dog teams, allows for better screening and detection.

Furthermore, the national anti-drug strategy of CSC works within a zero tolerance policy that takes a multi-prong approach to tackling drug and alcohol use, including urine testing, administrative consequences and disciplinary actions.

In particular, urinalysis has been a key focus of the CSC and plays a role in the legislation before us. The use of random and required urine testing is seen as a critical tool in an institutional setting. It holds offenders to account, providing a strong deterrent to drug use.

Of course there are well-defined circumstances in which the CSC can use these tests. First, there are the reasonable grounds for testing, such as finding drugs or drug paraphernalia in a cell. Second, the offender must undergo drug testing in order to participate in a particular institutional program. Third, it is part of a random drug testing program used by the CSC.

Random resting is both fair and effective and an excellent method to helping keep offenders accountable for their actions in prison. The test is random and an inmate who is using drugs cannot plan ahead to ensure he or she is clean the day of the test. Furthermore, if offenders refuse to take the test, they can be subject to the same sanctions or infractions they would receive if they had failed the test.

CSC has recently increased its random monthly testing to help ensure every offender is tested every year and now tests 10% of the offender population every month, up from 5%. With this increase in random testing, the CSC will have more information at its fingertips to monitor an offender's progress and to measure our efforts to create penitentiaries free of drugs.

The legislation before us proposes two amendments to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, which will empower the CSC and the Parole Board of Canada to use this urine test data to ensure offenders are held to account. Bill C-12 would stipulate in law that the Parole Board could cancel an offender's parole if the offender failed the test or refused to take a urine test in the same period between being granted parole and physically leaving the penitentiary. It would also emphasize in law the Parole Board's ability to set specific abstinence conditions on offenders as part of their parole conditions. Any evidence of drug use could result in the Parole Board cancelling an offender's parole.

We believe these are reasonable expectations of offenders to take responsibility for their actions and be held accountable for those actions. We believe this legislation can help us create a safer environment in our prisons. While many members seem to support more drugs in prisons, Canadians are not fooled. Canadians elected a Conservative majority government that was tough on crime, and we will crack down on drugs in our communities. That is exactly what we are doing, and we will continue to do that.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it perplexes me when members in the House say that there are many members who want more drugs in our prisons. It just amazes me where that comes from. It is very clear from our side that the best way to reduce drugs in our prisons is to have programs in place, such as rehabilitation and addiction programs, for all prisoners and access to those programs.

The member pointed out that when prisoners are caught with needles, or some form of drug, they will be put into a drug rehab program. There are 2,400 prisoners waiting right now to get into these programs. Does the member believe we should have more money allocated to a drug rehabilitation program?

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting because we have heard members from the opposite side propose providing safe needles in prisons. Somehow that does not fit with trying to ensure that prisoners do not have drugs. I have a really hard time understanding how that can help prisoners.

I believe we need to provide as much as we can in terms of rehabilitation, but there is another piece to that. That piece is individuals have responsibility for themselves, for their own actions. They need to ensure they take those actions, get rid of the drugs, stop using them and start performing in the way we expect our citizens of Canada to perform.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for the good work he does in committee.

In my speech earlier today I talked about the number of drug seizures within our federal penitentiaries. It may have surprised someone listening for the first time to this subject. At the same time, Correctional Services Canada has acknowledged that about 80% of federal inmates have a substance abuse problem.

The NDP plan, enabling drug users to continue using drugs by giving them needles, is not the way to go.

How do these illegal substances, these drugs, get into the prisons in the first place? I think that is something Canadians would like to know.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the public service committee did a great job and I believe the parliamentary secretary is very much in support of this legislation.

I find it interesting that there are numerous ways that drugs get into our prisons. I have a prison in my riding, which I toured not long ago. I talked with correctional officers who try to ensure drugs do not get into prisons.

However, there are very ingenious ways that these things happen. For example, prisoners go out to an open area. They have their colleagues put drugs inside tennis balls and throw them over the wall. The prisoners then have a tennis ball to play with and then use the drugs afterward. That is one very interesting way that happens, and I was totally surprised. Our corrections officers certainly were aware of that and took the appropriate actions.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

Mr. Speaker, earlier on I heard a comment from my hon. colleague from Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, a gentleman I admire and respect. He is the co-chair of public safety committee, which I chair.

What he said about the whole thing, in essence, was, that he thought the NDP members would support the bill, that they did not really have a lot of objection to it, but they did not like the name of the bill. My goodness, if that is not a serious situation to deal with.

I recognize the hon. member as one of the strongest constituency members in Canada. He has the pulse of his community. What do his people really think of the bill?

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Mr. Speaker, people in my riding are very upset with the amount of drugs out there. When we talk to them about drugs in prisons in particular, they have a hard time believing that is possible. However, once we explain the process of how the drugs get into the prisons, they are extremely upset and they want us to crack down.

As far as the name of the bill, I fully support it.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin my speech I want to take the liberty of answering the question that was posed by a Conservative member to another Conservative member.

The bottom line here is that no one in the House wants to see drugs inside or outside of prisons. That is the reality.

There is an economic law called the “law of diminishing returns”. At a certain point, if enough money is spent on a particular investment, the return is less than the money spent on it, so one has to look at other ways to allocate that funding.

I am talking about the $122 million that the government allocated for the prevention of drugs in prison. The result of that $122 million, and I want Canadians to know because this is taxpayers' money, was zero. Basically the Conservatives put some gimmicks in place to prevent drugs from coming into the prisons. There were ion machines that gave false positives a higher than usual number of times. There were sniffer dogs and other gimmicks that the Conservatives brought in.

However, the result of that $122 million that we spent on preventing drugs from getting into prisons was zero. There was a zero result, which the head of correctional services, Don Head, pointed out in a study done a year ago by the committee. He pointed out that the urinalysis rate of prisoners' testing positive for drugs in the prison system before the $122 million was spent was the same rate as after three years.

In other words, it did not reduce the number of people taking drugs in the prison system. What it did do was shortchange taxpayers in the amount of $122 million.

That is the supply side when I talk about the “law of diminishing returns”, and it is maxed out. We spent an extra $122 million trying to prevent drugs from getting into the prisons, and it did not have any effect.

However, we have a waiting list on the other side of the economics. I know my friends do not believe in facts and figures. In fact, the member for Newton—North Delta often points out the Conservatives are allergic to data, research and facts.

The facts are that if we look at the demand side in prisons, we have a waiting list of 2,400 prisoners waiting to be treated. They want to get into a program. They want to rehabilitate. They want to get rid of the addiction they have so they can move into our communities and live a normal life.

What does corrections mean? Corrections means that we correct our behaviour. We correct the behaviour in prison. When people commit crimes, they go to prison and become part of a captive audience. Believe it or not these people are going to return to our communities. How can the government make sure these people are able to integrate into our communities? It could provide those rehabilitation services and apprenticeship opportunities, so when the prisoners get out into our communities they are better able to integrate into our society. That is how it works. That is the demand side of it.

On the demand side of the equation, we need to reduce the demand of people wanting to take drugs. The best way to do that is to treat the people who are taking drugs. We were able to spend $122 million on the interdiction side, which showed no result, yet we are cutting programs that have shown to be effective.

The corrections investigation officer has, time after time, pointed out that we need additional funds and resources to provide services to people who want to be rehabilitated. We have experts from our communities. There have been many peer studies done around the world that very clearly point out that we also need to work on the demand side to reduce drugs in prisons. However, facts, figures and research do not really work with the Conservatives.

Earlier today, one of the members from the Conservative side pointed out that some members somehow want drugs in our prisons, or they do not care how many drugs are in prisons. That is absolutely incorrect. I am perplexed. I do not usually get mad, but I do not think there are any members in the chamber who want more drugs, let alone in prisons. We do not want any drugs in our society.

How do we deal with it? The best way to deal with it is by helping those individuals who have addictions.

We heard the figures earlier; 80% of the people coming into our prisons have some sort of drug or alcohol addiction. That tells me that there are not enough resources in our communities to help these people and to get them off drugs and alcohol. If we can do that in our communities before they commit crimes, we would not have victims. We would be helping them by eliminating the victim side of it.

The member also talked about how we are going to bring in a charter for victims and help them. I have been in this place for two and a half years. I have not seen a single piece of legislation from the other side of the House to help victims.

The Conservatives will talk about the veterans and how they are the champions for veterans' rights. I know of a number of cases in my own constituency and I hear from veterans across the country that the government has failed. These are our heroes. These are people who have served our country. These are the people who have given us the right to speak here and outside the House in a free and democratic society.

Going back to the bill, I look at the title, the drug-free prisons act. The correctional investigation officer wants zero tolerance for drugs in prisons. I agree with that. We should strive to do our best, but that is an aspiration. It is not the reality in our society.

We talk about spending $122 million on the interdiction of drugs in prisons. We have seen no results. The results that the experts have given us are from the rehabilitation and prevention side. That is where the results are. That is where we can still have economies of scale. We can get more prisoners off drugs. Those are real facts. That is science. Those are economic models.

The Conservatives will tell us that they are great economic managers, but they have been in government for seven years. In seven years, how many surplus budgets have they had? Can someone tell me from the Conservative side how many surplus budgets they have had? They have all gone quiet, because they have had none. The budgets have all been deficits. Not only that, the Conservatives have had the largest deficit for any government in the history of our country, yet they call themselves good managers of our money.

Here is another example. When the Conservatives formed government, we had $26 billion in a current account trade surplus. Under their management we have somehow turned a $26 billion surplus into a $62 billion deficit. That is their record.

When we are talking about real records, facts and figures, science and economics, economics tells us that the $122 million did not have the impact that the government was hoping for. We, along with experts, were telling the Conservatives that they needed to spend money on the other side.

Going back to the title of the bill, this is just like the title for Bill C-2 with regard to InSite in Vancouver, making our communities safe. Their talking points are that they want to hear from the communities when this is decided. In 2003, when InSite was being put in place, the community decided. The City of Vancouver met with stakeholders, whether they were public safety officials, police officers, public health officials, medical officers, doctors, nurses or community organizers, and they came up with a plan to set up InSite in Vancouver. It has been highly successful in regard to reducing crime rates and reducing needles in the area.

Conservatives say the opposition parties want the needles out in the community or that we want our kids to have access to these needles. That is not true. In fact, the needles that were in the alleys and in front of businesses are no longer there. That has been reduced because of InSite, which was put in place to deal with heroin addicts in Vancouver.

A process was in place that was working well. However, what do the Conservatives do? They said they want to consult the community. In 2008, they took it to the court in B.C. and then to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court clearly told them that under the charter people have the right to access these particular services. Well, we know the Conservative ideology. They were not satisfied with the Supreme Court decision. What did they do? They came up with this fancy name that the bill is protecting our communities, yet it does exactly the opposite.

It is the same with Bill C-12, the drug-free prisons act. There is nothing in the act that gives facts and figures or how it is going to reduce drugs in our prisons. In fact, Bill C-12 basically adds a provision to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act that makes it clear that the Parole Board may use positive results from urine tests or refusals to take urine tests for drugs in making decisions on parole eligibility.

This gives clear authority to an existing practice of the Parole Board, which we support. In other words, the practice is already in place if a prisoner has a positive test for drugs, that information is taken into consideration by the Parole Board before parole eligibility is decided.

Bill C-12 has a misleading title, “drug-free prisons act”. Maybe the Conservatives are hoping to send a letter to their base or maybe they have already, because they did that when C-2 came to the House. They fired off a letter to their Conservative base asking for money based on how they were protecting the community. In fact, it was exactly the opposite. The bill does not protect the community. It puts roadblocks for communities to make local decisions. The bill is basically Ottawa telling our municipalities what they can or cannot do in their neighbourhoods. The communities can decide for themselves.

I do not see any facts or figures for some sort of program or plan that would show us how this measure would make our prisons drug-free.

I would certainly like that, but I am also pragmatic. We have had laws for hundreds of years prohibiting drugs in our society. The United States raised a war on drugs and said they were going to get rid of them. Did they get rid of them?

We have spent billions of dollars trying to. There are the times when we have to keep going back to this law of diminishing returns.

However, we have to look at the other side, which I have also talked about. That is the rehabilitation side, but there are shortages of space for people who want to get into these programs. The title of the bill has nothing to do with trying to make our prisons safer and rehabilitating and correcting the behaviour of prisoners.

Bill C-12 has a misleading title, as the bill would do little to eliminate all drugs from our federal prison system. An investment in rehabilitation is required if we are serious about rehabilitating prisoners and integrating them back into the community.

I think all people in this House believe that the prison sentence has to fit the crime. There is no doubt that if somebody commits a crime, we put him or in prison. I think all Canadians agree with that. The bottom line is that in two years, three years, four years, 10 years, or whatever the sentence is, these people are going to come back into our communities, so how do we deal with them?

Well, we try to rehabilitate them. We try to correct them in our system. They are a captive audience, and we have seen that when people have taken programs in prison, the recidivism rate for those individuals goes down quite low. Would it not make sense for the Conservatives to provide those resources, instead of wasting money on fancy titles for a bill or sending letters out to their base saying that they are actually doing something here and asking for money?

That is wrong. It is not going to help us in the long run.

The NDP has been very steadfast in its support for measures that would make our prisons safe, while Conservative governments have ignored recommendations from correctional staff and the Correctional Investigator that would decrease violence, gang activity, and drugs in our prisons.

I have had the chance to visit a number of prisons. I had the chance to visit a couple of prisons in Kingston. I had a chance to visit prisons in British Columbia, my province. I visited Kent prison and I also visited Matsqui prison. I talked to the prisoners. I talked to the correctional staff. Overwhelmingly, the response from those individuals was that, first, they do not have enough rehabilitation programs to rehabilitate the drug addict. In addition, money for apprenticeship programs is being cut.

To sum up, we certainly need more investment . There is a long list of people who are waiting to get into drug rehabilitation programs. That is the correct way to go forward: to prevent these individuals coming into our communities without any treatment in the correctional system.

New Democrats will support the bill at this stage, but the title does not reflect the true intent of this bill.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the speech by my colleague from the NDP and I lost count of how many times he said “I am perplexed”. After listening to his speech, I think most people in the House are probably perplexed at what he was trying to get to.

He mentioned multiple times that he would certainly like to see drug-free prisons and that he does not know why Conservatives keep saying that the NDP is not as tough on crime as Conservatives are. I am not sure if he realizes it, but he actually sits in the NDP caucus, and it is that party that wants to establish a needle exchange program in our prisons. Common sense dictates that if we want to get people off drugs, we should not give them the tools that enable them to continue doing drugs. We want to crack down, remove the drugs from prisons, and make sure they are not getting in there in the first place.

I am wondering whether the member opposite thinks we should be giving prisoners needles to enable them to do drugs or whether he believes that he should be sitting on this side of the House and supporting drug-free prisons.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will not be sitting on that side of the House, you can be assured of that. I will be sitting with my colleagues in 2015 on that side of the House, but not with those members.

I do not get perplexed very often, but I am perplexed, and I will tell everyone why. After Conservatives spent $122 million of Canadian taxpayers' money, I and people in my community are perplexed because they have wasted $122 million and have no data to show that the number of drug addicts in our prisons has been reduced or that the drug level in prisons has gone down. New Democrats have proposed to look at the demand side, where there are 2,400 prisoners waiting to be rehabilitated, yet the government has not invested in that side of the equation.

Yes, I am perplexed, but again, that is because the Conservatives have wasted $122 million of Canadian taxpayers' money.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Surrey North for that very good speech, but I am going to add to his perplexity.

On the one hand, the Conservatives say they are opposed to the trafficking of women, girls, and boys in this country, yet yesterday we learned that Status of Women Canada has stopped the funding for a shelter in Edmonton that dealt specifically with women and girls who were being trafficked. The Conservative government is claiming that it is aiming for a zero tolerance, drug-free policy in prison, yet on the other hand it does not invest in rehabilitation and treatment.

A zero tolerance stance to drugs in prison is an aspiration rather than an effective policy. I want to quote the report from the Office of the Correctional Investigator for 2011-2012, which stated:

A “zero-tolerance” stance to drugs in prison...simply does not accord with the facts of crime and addiction in Canada or elsewhere in the world. Harm reduction measures within a public health and treatment orientation offer a far more promising, cost-effective and sustainable approach to reducing subsequent crime and victimization.

I wonder if the member for Surrey North could comment on that.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is a wonderful question.

I was in the committee meeting when the Correctional Investigator pointed out that facts and figures show that we need to spend additional amounts on the rehabilitation side.

I am going to quote the member for Newton—North Delta. She always says that Conservatives are allergic to facts, research, and science, and I have to agree with her, because when New Democrats bring up facts and figures, the Conservatives go on rants that have nothing to do with the question we are putting together. If they wanted to have a real debate, they would present some facts and figures.

I am presenting some facts and figures for them. They spent $122 million of Canadian taxpayers' money with no results. While I am at it, $3.1 billion is missing from the Treasury Board. That was before the summer, and we have not seen the Treasury Board president stand in the House to tell us whether he found the money during the summer or if he is still looking for it.

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I have noted the interest the folks opposite have with the idea of cracking down on illegal drugs in prisons and elsewhere, and I commend them for that. I think it is extremely important. However, with the bill before us particularly, we have been talking about the fact that it would not do what they say it would do. As my colleague pointed out in his speech, the Conservatives spent in excess of $120 million and got no results in trying to stop it.

Frankly, I am perplexed about the stated commitment that the Conservative government has in trying to stop illegal drug use and trade. We have one of the most prominent political leaders in this country, the mayor of Toronto, who has admitted to smoking crack, purchasing crack and using other drugs such as marijuana and others, but we have not heard a peep out of the members opposite. Would the member not agree that it is perplexing?

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, maybe I am not quite as perplexed with that question. The fellow he is talking about is the Prime Minister's fishing buddy.

We talk about reducing drugs in our prisons, yet here is a Conservative friend and donor who has openly admitted to using crack. Here is the mayor of Toronto who has admitted to using drugs, hangs out with drug dealers, yet we have not heard anything from the Prime Minister regarding how he views this particular mayor and how it is affecting Torontonians in their day-to-day business. Is this costing them money? I have heard a number of reports.

The Conservatives have one set of guidelines and rules for the general public, but they have another set for their friends and Conservatives.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, all evidence and research shows us that we cannot tackle the drug situation in this country just through incarceration and punishment. We need to invest in rehabilitation and treatment. Would the member for Surrey North agree?

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want Canadians to know that these prisoners will get out of prison one day or another. It is the responsibility of the government to make sure that when they come out of prison they are rehabilitated.

We have seen from the facts that there are 2,400 prisoners waiting to get into rehabilitation programs, yet the government is spending $122 million trying to prevent drugs coming into prisons, which has not worked.

On this side of the House, we want prisoners to be rehabilitated. We want programs in place in prisons so that when prisoners do come out they are able to reintegrate into society very easily.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. member for Surrey North will, I am sure, be interested to know that he has one minute remaining in the time for questions and comments, should he wish it, when the House next resumes debate on the question.

It being 1:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.

The House resumed from November 22 consideration of the motion that Bill C-12, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. member for Newton—North Delta will have about two to three minutes to start off, and then we will switch over. I will indicate when the time is right.

The member for Newton—North Delta.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak to the bill today, but before I do that, I will take a moment to acknowledge that it is the international day to end violence against women. It behooves each and every one of us in the House to reflect on that for a moment and think about the seriousness of this issue, which has an impact on our communities right across this country and right around the world. We always have to remind ourselves that there is a lot of work we could be doing in this area.

I will also take this opportunity to acknowledge the work done by my good friend, the member of Parliament for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, on this file. He is a parliamentarian for whom I have the utmost respect because he does his work on the Hill really well, does excellent work on the file, and from conversations I have had with people from his riding, I also know he is an amazing worker in his riding as well. On this particular file, not just on this legislation but other things that come before the committee on the issue of public safety, he is such a good researcher and spokesperson for us.

I am really struck by the title of the bill. It is a laudable title. I do not think there is anyone on either side of the House who would disagree with the slogan. However, we have a slogan that is a title for a piece of legislation, and that should cause us some concern: drug-free prisons act.

All of us want to have drug-free prisons. We also want to have drug-free communities. We also want to make sure we get rid of homelessness. I can think of so many issues I could put under this kind of bill. It is like talking about having a universal child care policy. Just saying we should have one does not make it happen; we actually have to take action.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. member for Newton—North Delta will have 17 minutes remaining for her remarks when the House next takes up debate on the question.

We will go now to statements by members.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-12, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise to speak in support of this bill. As I said before question period, I really want to stress that the title of the bill really does stick in my throat, the drug-free prisons act. There is very little in the legislation that would actually make our prisons drug free.

We really have to stretch it to see how the government came up with such a heading for legislation. The only thing I can think of is that it appeals to the Conservative base and it is one of those grandiose announcements that the government can make without really taking any concrete steps to make anything happen.

The bill would codify into legislation a current practice of the Parole Board. It is because of this that we support it. All the bill would do is add a provision to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act to make it clear that the Parole Board may use positive results from urine tests or refusals to take urine tests for drugs when making its decisions of parole eligibility.

It is always good to codify things and put them into legislation. As the board was already doing this, and we know board members take many things into consideration, it is really good to have this here. However, let us not kid ourselves. The bill would do very little, if anything, to make our prisons drug free.

I would like to talk about this. Often members from the other side will use all kinds of hyperbole to deflect. Let me stress that the NDP is very firm in its support for any measures that will make our prisons safe. That is what it is all about for us. On the other hand, the Conservative government, which purports to do the work, has ignored recommendations from corrections staff and the correctional investigator that would decrease violence, gang activity and drug use in our prisons.

Once again, we go back to the point of the title of the bill. Is it just pandering to the base or is it real action? I will point out some of the issues here.

One of the key things to remember is that we are talking about addiction. We know, and research shows us, that this is a health issue. As a health issue, it needs treatment and resources.

At the very time the government is cutting rehabilitation programs and the funding to tackle the addictions issue, it puts forward a bill called the drug-free prisons act. It often reminds me of when I was teaching. I do not think there was a teacher or parent who did not want to have drug-free schools. We all want that today, but just our wishing it and saying that phrase does not make it happen.

When we look at drug addictions, whether they are in schools or prisons, we have to pay attention to a sound body of research, specialists and front line service providers who know that this is a serious issue and that it needs a multi-pronged approach. Just saying “thou shalt not do drugs” does not make people stop doing drugs. It takes rehabilitation programs, community support programs, treatment centres, counselling and I could go on, but I will not.

What we want to look at is how over the last year, the Correctional Service of Canada has admitted that $122 million of Conservative spending on interdiction tools and technology to stop drugs from entering prisons since 2008 has not led to any reduction in drug use in prisons.

We are talking about real data and real evidence. We know the government has an allergy to listening to front line service providers, specialists and scientists and also to paying any attention to researchers. However, what we have is very clear. Spending $122 million led to net zero results.

We know, from a public safety committee study that was done in 2012, that drug-free prisons are unlikely to be achieved in the world. Yet, the government insists on continuing to use that slogan to put forward suggestions that will not lead to drug-free prisons. At this stage, the goal is unrealistic. Although laudable, and we should have lofty goals, the role of the legislators is not to have those lofty goals in legislation, but to put forward concrete resolutions and suggestions that will help.

I want to acknowledge at this stage the work done by my colleague from Surrey North. He sat on the committee that examined this whole issue. It came up with 14 recommendations, and I do not see any of them reflected in the legislation that has been put forward. This once again lends credence to the fact that even when the Conservatives have committees at which they call witnesses, the majority of whom are usually the government's, and experts who tell them how they can work toward having fewer drugs in prisons, the Conservatives would rather not take any of those steps. Instead they use the slogans in the House to pander and make it look as if they are doing something when they are not doing too much.

Also, it is absolutely asinine, a word I do not use lightly, to keep spending money on something that does not work. We have evidence that it does not work just to keep focusing on detection or prevention of entry of drugs into the prisons. Of course we should work on that, but if that is the only game in town, the only tool they are giving front line service providers, then they are failing them very much. Instead, the government has a pretty miserable track record when it comes to public safety.

By the way, if putting people in prisons were going to solve problems, we should pay attention to what happened in the United States where it has packed prisons. It cannot keep up with building prisons. However, has that decreased crime or drug abuse? No.

The public safety adopted by the government has led to more prisoners with addictions and mental illness in our prison system, without the needed supports to tackle those issues, which we know we have to tackle in the framework of health.

I have also noticed that CSC has had its budget cut by 10%. CSC has had $295 million cut from its budget. Here is another one that is going to absolutely shock members because when we hear the rhetoric from my colleagues across the way, one would think that they were the bee's knees when it comes to fighting crime and taking a handle on what is going on in our detention centres. However, under the government's watch, the budget for fighting substance abuse, for which we know there need to be monies allocated, went down by $2 million.

When we think about it, out of the total budget, what prisons spend on substance abuse are $11 million. At the same time that the government is going on about having drug-free prisons, its only solution to is to codify something that the Parole Board already does, while it has reduced the budget from $11 million to $9 million. That is a huge percentage when we think about it. We are not talking about a small reduction. This is the same government that in 2007 removed harm reduction because it did not matter. For the Conservatives, it is not about actually tackling public safety or safety in our prisons, it is all about the sound bites, what sounds good, what will appeal to their base and what makes them look as if they are doing something when they are actually not doing anything on this file, or next to nothing.

As the budget is being cut for substance abuse programs, we also know that there is a very high percentage of prisoners waiting for services. This is going to shock members because it shocked me. Many of them wait for so long that they cannot even be released or go on parole because they have not had the necessary treatment and support they need to fight their addictions. When they finish their time, they go back into society without having had any effective treatment for substance abuse or how to deal with mental health issues that we hear so much about. How is that all about public safety?

Then they become repeat offenders and the government uses the words “repeat offenders” almost like dirty words. However, in very many ways the government is creating repeat offenders because we have a penal system that is based on a rehabilitation system. We believe that with counselling and support rehabilitation is possible, not for everyone but the vast majority. Where rehabilitation is possible, we should be investing in it because in the long term it will save Canadians money. Instead, the government does not provide support for prisoners to take control of their substance abuse, to receive the health care support they need, the prevention, counselling, et cetera, while they are in prison. They are released and, lo and behold, the Conservatives get to stand at other press conferences to talk about all the repeat offenders, all the drug addicts, all the people who have mental health issues, while they themselves are responsible for the release of many prisoners who have not received the rehabilitation they need.

This should be a major concern to us because, as we know, last year Canada recorded the largest prison population ever in federal prisons. This shocked me as well. There were 15,097 prisoners. We have heard a lot about double-bunking and the lack of space in some of our prisons. This is at the same time the government has introduced mandatory minimum sentences and, once again, has taken the flexibility away from judges, who can make rulings based on the full context and what has gone on. Due to minimum sentencing, experts are imagining and projecting that our prison population will increase by huge numbers.

At the same time, with very little invested in harm reduction and with people double-bunking, it does not take a rocket scientist to recognize that if prisoners are double-bunked, there is going to be a little more physical contact, and that is actually going to increase the violence.

We are hearing huge safety concerns from our corrections officers. We also know that as the budget is reduced and the population is increased, there will be a greater number of people who finish their sentences without receiving any of the supports that are absolutely critical to their rehabilitation and their reintegration into our communities. Once again, the government is actually not worrying about public safety but is putting public safety in jeopardy with such irresponsible actions.

I would really urge the government to, first, call this bill what it is. It is certainly not a drug-free prisons act. Making pronouncements does not make it so.

Second, I would urge the government to take a look at the study that was done by the government, take a look at the recommendations that the study put forward, and then bring forward policy and legislation that will actually ensure our communities are safe.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for her speech and her kind words to me.

The NDP has a very solid team working on the public safety committee. One of our great frustrations is the tendency of the government to go back to propaganda, as the member described.

One of the things missing in the discussion about drug-free prisons, and it is something the member touched on in her speech, is the fact that addictions are a health problem. When we look at Bill C-2, which deals with safe injection sites, we see that it is also a bill that is being sent to the public safety committee rather than the health committee.

Could the member say a few words about the Conservatives' tendency to rely on moral condemnation and interdiction instead of treating these problems as health problems?

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as a counsellor who was involved in dealing with young students with addiction problems and who watched what it did to the families, and as someone who was involved in dealing with children whose parents had substance abuse problems and who watched the impact it had on the young people, I do not think there is anybody out there who does not realize that drug addiction and substance abuse are health issues.

We have to have a multi-pronged approach. It has to include proper supports. It has to include counselling as well as front-line service from our health care system.

Just making huge pronouncements is not going to fix the problem. I would love to make an announcement that Canada is going to be a drug-free zone. I would love to make that pronouncement. However, that pronouncement is not going to make it happen.

In that same way, this bill should have some substance and actually take a look at treatment.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, I was listening to the speech and did not hear a whole lot about the actual contents of this bill.

I hear the opposition members from the NDP talking about how we should be spending more on drug rehabilitation and getting prisoners into programs. I just want to remind them that 2% to 5% of the total budget of Correctional Service of Canada is actually spent on core correctional programs, and that includes programs that deal with drug and illegal substance abuse.

I hear the NDP members talking about how they want a needle exchange program in prisons and how they want to enable prisoners to continue doing those types of drugs, such as heroin and so on. However, if we are trying to treat them for addiction and we are enabling them by providing them with needles so that they can use illegal substances, I do not understand how that is actually dealing with the problem. On this side of the House, we are actually tackling the problem with a three-pronged approach.

I am wondering if the hon. member could comment on the fact that we are spending money on rehabilitation and drug addiction programs within the correctional service, and why their party actually supports the use of needles within prisons.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am not often left speechless, but when I hear statements like that one about the NDP supporting needle exchanges for prisons, I am speechless, and I would say that the member across the way knows that is not true.

Let me go on to what the member across the way did say.

A measly 2.7% of the budget is actually spent on corrections, including substance abuse, in all of the rehabilitation budget, and that budget, as I said in my speech, if the member across the way was listening, has actually gone down, while the number of prisoners has gone up. We have gone down from $11 million to $9 million, yet now we have a greater number of prisoners. The number of prisoners going in with substance abuse issues and mental health issues has increased, yet that budget is going down. This will not solve the problem.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the comment that just came from the other side from the parliamentary secretary about facilitating drug abuse goes back again to another bill before us, which is Bill C-2, on safe injection sites. The Conservatives seem to confuse harm reduction with their own slogans. Harm reduction actually works to get people off drugs, whereas their slogans do nothing to get people off drugs.

Could the hon. member comment on the fact that the Conservatives have actually removed harm reduction from the goals of our drug treatment programs?

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am flabbergasted that a government would actually remove harm reduction in dealing with substance abuse.

I stress again that if the government is serious about public safety and serious about tackling the drug problems in our prisons, there is a way to do it. It was studied at committee. There are experts who have told the committee how it can be done, but cutting the budget is not how to do it.

The committee made recommendations. None of those have been implemented here. The only thing the bill does is codify a practice that the Parole Board already uses. There is nothing in here that will actually lead to reduction of drug usage in our prisons.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, just going back to the 2% to 5% that is spent within the Correctional Service of Canada, that is actually about $150 million on average per year. That is not small change, as the NDP would like Canadians to believe. That is actually a lot of money.

I have to ask the question again. If someone continues to do illegal drugs, regardless of whether they are inside or outside of prison, we have to be able to take action against that activity. If rehabilitation and other methods used within the Correctional Service of Canada do not work to help people get off drugs, and people are still smuggling those illegal drugs into the prison system, I would like to know what the member thinks should be done about that particular issue.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we have laws, and when people use illegal drugs, those laws kick in.

Once again the member across the way seems to fail in comprehending a very fundamental point. The point is that if we want to tackle substance abuse by prisoners, we have to use a multi-pronged approach. Cutting the budget and reducing the services available for correction, whether it is in substance abuse or otherwise, will not solve that problem.

Once again, just saying, “Stop doing drugs” will not do it. This is a health issue, and it is the same government that is releasing prisoners, after they have finished their terms, into our communities without ensuring that they have had the rehabilitation they need so we do not have repeat offenders and the taxpayer does not keep paying over and over again.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I was struck by the comments the member for Newton—North Delta made about the single aspect that is entailed in the bill.

What does that make her think about the current government? Is the government, after seven years in power, so completely out of ideas that it takes up the time of Parliament and the discussion of such an important part of the federal government's responsibility--that is, dealing with the criminal justice institution--by simply codifying one practice that is already in place? Does this show that the government is completely out of ideas and is simply just putting forward slogans to appeal to some part of the Canadian population?

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, there is absolutely nothing in the drug-free prisons act that would do that. This is a slogan to appeal to the masses.

I am surprised that we have not had more debate in this House today on a number of bills. However, I do want to express appreciation to the member for being the first member from the other side to get up to ask questions today. I am hoping she will take back to her caucus that we need to invest in rehabilitation and correction and not reduce the money at the same time that the number of prisoners is increasing.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank you for giving me the chance to speak to Bill C-12, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act or, to use the much more impressive-sounding title chosen by the Conservatives, the Drug-Free Prisons Act. I will come back to it in a moment.

First, I would like to say that, when it comes to justice, crime or prison, I always think about the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and about the 12 days to end violence against women campaign. I always feel somewhat sad as I talk about this year after year because it clearly means that we are not progressing as quickly as we might hope on this issue.

Those who are here in our beautiful nation's capital may be interested to know that I have agreed to sponsor a Théâtre Parminou play, entitled Coup de foudre, along with two women's shelters, Unies-Vers-Femmes and Centre Actu-Elle. The play will take place tomorrow in the Desjardins room of Polyvalente Hormisdas-Gamelin, which is located at 580 Maclaren Street East in Buckingham. The play is very important in raising awareness of violence against women. I extend an invitation to anyone who has the opportunity to attend to do so.

We have to move forward on this issue so that we do not have to keep calling attention to it year after year. We know that every year these 12 days culminate with the end of the campaign, the commemoration of the massacre at the Polytechnique, on December 6. This is always a very sad time.

First, I rise to address Bill C-12 and to pay tribute to my colleagues on the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, including the public safety critic, the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, for their exceptional work. It is not always easy to stand up to this government.

I see it at the meetings of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, as the justice critic. When you dare question certain provisions, you get it all thrown back in your face, as if you sided with criminals, or inmates in this case, and you had a lot of nerve to question any of the provisions.

However, I was listening to the questions members asked my colleague from Newton—North Delta after her speech, which I really liked, and I was saying to myself that something was missing from the Conservative side, since the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca had clearly stated that we were going to support this bill at second reading. We really have to put an end to the hostilities until we have finished with Bill C-12 and do what we have been asked to do, which is pass it at second reading and send it to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security to see if it is flawless or if it needs to be improved and amended. It is the committee that will have to do that.

Earlier, I spoke about its grandiose title. The Conservatives are often criticized for having bumper sticker policy, or legislation based on prominent news stories. That is their specialty. The Conservatives think that you do not always have to have good public policies. Instead you should have something that is “in your face”, something that attracts the attention of their voter base, preferably, sometimes something that brings prejudices into play.

When I see a title like the one given to Bill C-12, the Drug-Free Prisons Act, I want to be sure right from the start that I have really understood the words that it uses. According to this title, the bill is not trying to improve anything, but to completely eradicate drugs from prisons. I told myself that this bill must be really good and that its approach must be extraordinary, so I read it.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety roundly criticized my colleagues for not talking about the bill and asked them to go and read it.

I really can talk about this bill.

Clause 1 announces that this bill will make our prisons drug free. How wonderful. Then we see the title of the act: “Corrections and Conditional Release Act”.

Clause 2 states:

2. The Corrections and Conditional Release Act is amended by adding the following after section 123:

I take this to mean that this is how we are going to make our prisons drug free, so I start reading, anxious to see what is going to happen and how we will manage to make prisons drug free, since drugs are one of the biggest problems. The bill states:

123.1 If an offender has been granted parole under section 122 or 123 but has not yet been released and the offender fails or refuses to provide a urine sample when demanded to provide one under section 54, or provides under that section a urine sample for which the result of the urinalysis is positive, as that term is defined in the regulations, then the Service shall inform the Board of the failure or refusal or the test result.

They want to make prisons drug free, but someone who has taken drugs or is taking drugs could refuse to take a urine test that would prove whether they are on drugs or not. The 308 Members of Parliament in this House, including the Speaker, all agree with making prisons drug free, but that is easier said than done.

I will continue. Clause 3 states:

3. Section 124 of the Act is amended by adding the following after subsection (3):

(3.1) If the Board is informed of the matters under section 123.1 [which I just read, about when someone who fails or refuses to provide a urine sample] and the offender has still not yet been released, the Board shall cancel the parole if [a big “if” right in the middle of the clause], in its opinion, based on the information received under that section, the criteria set out in paragraphs 102(a) and (b) are no longer met.

I wondered what section 102 of the act was about, so I looked it up:

102. The Board or a provincial parole board may grant parole to an offender if, in its opinion,

(a) the offender will not, by reoffending, present an undue risk to society before the expiration according to law of the sentence the offender is serving; and

(b) the release of the offender will contribute to the protection of society by facilitating the reintegration of the offender into society as a law-abiding citizen.

Up until now, our Conservative friends have not touched that. This means that they believe that someone can be rehabilitated inside, that we can free the evil criminals one day and reintegrate them into society, “if, in its opinion...the offender will not, by reoffending, present an undue risk to society before the expiration...of the sentence...”

Take, for example, someone who was given a prison sentence of two years less a day and is released earlier. He behaved well, there is no reason to believe he will reoffend before the expiration of his sentence, he presents no undue risk to society, and his release will contribute to protecting society. This is important: releasing a prisoner can be a way of helping society. It can help by facilitating the reintegration of the offender into society as a law-abiding citizen. Those are the basic concepts involved in granting release.

All the bill does is say the following:

4. Subsection 133(3) of the Act is replaced by the following:

(3) The releasing authority may impose [I repeat “may impose”] any conditions on the parole, statutory release or unescorted temporary absence of an offender that it considers reasonable and necessary in order to protect society and to facilitate the offender’s successful reintegration into society. For greater certainty, the conditions may include any condition regarding the offender’s use of drugs or alcohol, including in cases when that use has been identified as a risk factor in the offender’s criminal behaviour.

Then it is a question of when the bill will come into effect.

That is the Conservatives' glorious, incredible Drug-Free Prisons Act. At least, that is what it would seem to anyone who reads it. I had planned an interview with someone who told me they were anxious to hear our thoughts on what it means to have drug-free prisons. The interview will be quite short. This bill has what I would describe as an overly inflated title. Every time the Conservatives introduce a bill, I picture the Michelin man in my head.

It is so inflated.

So much so that ultimately, it is no longer believable. Then the Conservatives ask us such ridiculous questions that we have to wonder if they are mocking us. Probably not. Seriously, we have often been accused of not reading things, but now we have proved the opposite, because I have read the bill from cover to cover. So then everyone has read Bill C-12. If they had not before, well they have now.

I sometimes have the impression that the members opposite read from nicely prepared notes. They accuse us of not reading material, but in truth, they are the ones who are not reading. It is incredible. They rise and try to have us believe that they will succeed in making prisons drug-free.

Since I felt like reading today, I would like to read to you an amazing article written by justice reporter Sean Fine. It appeared in this morning’s edition of the Globe and Mail.

This article is dated November 25, 2013. I will read it in its entirety because in my view, it is right on the mark. It focuses on the real problems that the Conservatives are not even addressing, not the kind of thing you can put on bumper stickers to give people the impression that the Conservatives are solving all of society’s problems. If it cannot be summed up in a short phrase, such as “Death to so and so” or “We are the good guys and they are the bad guys”, then the Conservatives will not make the issue into a major public policy.

Here is what Sean Fine had to say this morning in the Globe and Mail:

Canada’s ombudsman for federal inmates says prisons have become more crowded, violent and worse at rehabilitation under the Conservative government, despite a budget increase of 40 per cent in the past five years. In a speech heavily critical of the Conservative government’s tough-on-crime policies, Howard Sapers criticized “mass incarceration,” “arbitrary and abusive conditions of detention,” and the victims’ rights agenda that Justice Minister Peter MacKay has placed at the centre of his program. The idea that “punishment with no apparent limits is justified stands many of the principles underlying our democracy and our criminal-justice system on their head,” Mr. Sapers told 150 people at a Toronto church on Sunday. Between March, 2003, and March, 2013, the number of federal prisoners—a federal sentence is one of two years or more—rose by 2,100, or 16.5 per cent, even as crime rates declined sharply. The overall corrections budget is now $2.6-billion a year, but even though 2,700 new cells have been or are about to be added to the system, more than 20 per cent of inmates are double-bunked—two in a cell designed for one. Mr. Sapers, whose mandate is to report to Parliament on individual and systemic concerns of offenders, said the government has been clear about its agenda and he hopes his comments “reflect a fair analysis of the impact of that agenda on the mandate of my office.” He warned that many of the explosive conditions that fuelled a deadly riot at the Kingston Penitentiary in 1971, riots that led the government to establish the ombudsman’s office as a watchdog over prison conditions, are still in play. “As penitentiaries become more crowded, they also become more dangerous and unpredictable places.” Violent incidents and the use of restraints, pepper spray and segregation have risen, he said. The government responded by stressing the importance of victims’ rights.

We all agree with that.

“We make no apologies for standing up for victims’ rights, and ensuring their voices are heard in our Justice system,” Paloma Aguilar, [the Minister of Justice’s] press secretary, said in an e-mail.

In parentheses for me, what the hell does that answer have in relation to what Mr. Sapers was describing? Absolutely zero.

This is precisely the type of response the Conservatives always give when they have absolutely nothing to say. For example, if I ask them what colour the sky is and they do not have an answer, they will say that they are standing up for victims of crime.

We are all in agreement. We all support victims. However, we need to take steps to ensure that there will not be any more victims of crime. We need actions and laws in place so that we can say to the public that their safety is our priority, not merely a concept. It is not enough to say that we have locked someone away in prison and that is the end of it. The offender would remain locked up for a long time and when he is released, anything might happen.

Jean-Christophe de Le Rue, spokesman for Public Safety Minister...said being tough on crime has produced positive results.

Another brilliant answer.

With all due respect, I must say that the answers we hear from both these people bring to mind an expression we often hear from the two-, three-, five- or seven-year-old kids from my area: it is not related. It is not related to the question or issue that was raised.

“Being tough on crime has produced positive results.”

I do not know. As we have already seen in another context, statistics show that crime rate is going down.

Can anyone claim, like the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness like to do, that these lower numbers are a result of the tough on crime agenda? I believe that a few years from now, we will suddenly wake up and realize our prisons are a nightmare. Indeed, the situation there is already a nightmare.

Instead of pursuing photo ops across the country, the minister should go to courtrooms and speak with his former colleagues—crown prosecutors, defence attorneys and judges—and ask them about the impact of these wonderful, mammoth bills focused on crime and public safety. He should ask them about the impact these bills have in the field. Alberta and Quebec are complaining loud and clear about a lack of judges. There is a very basic problem.

However, the government responds, “We make no apologies for standing up for victims’ rights”. I hope so; we all do. However, that does not make our penitentiary system more secure.

Measures like this one do not make correctional workers safer. A fancy bill title is not enough to make prisons drug-free or create a better system for everyone. Who would believe such a thing?

Mr. Sapers listed several Conservative initiatives that he said have undermined the idea that prisoners can be rehabilitated -- from tougher sentencing rules such as new mandatory minimums and an end to automatic early release for serious repeat criminals, to tough-on-inmate policies. These include charging more for making telephone calls, increasing room and board charges, eliminating incentive pay for work in prison industries and reducing access to prison libraries.

I do not have enough time to cover all of the details, so I encourage everyone to read what Mr. Sapers wrote. He is more informed than I about what is going on in penitentiaries and in terms of public safety.

He is Canada's ombudsman for federal inmates.

Under the circumstances, some might wonder why we care about prisoners.

First of all, they are human beings.

I do not think that Canada has chosen to believe that a human being is no longer a human being. I would suggest they talk to their backbench colleagues, who are always making all kinds of statements about what a human being is.

I think it is important to treat people as humans even while they are being punished for what they have done. The government should not try to convince the public that a bill just a couple of clauses long will eradicate drugs from prisons. They should not take us for fools.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I was very interested in the speech by my colleague, the justice critic for the official opposition. I just want to read a section of the current Corrections and Conditional Release Act, which has the principles that guide the provincial parole boards in achieving the purpose of conditional release. This is important. They are as follows:

...parole boards take into consideration all relevant...information, including the stated reasons...of the sentencing judge, the nature and gravity of the offence, the degree of responsibility of the offender, information from the trial or sentencing process and information obtained from victims, offenders and other components of the criminal justice system, including assessments provided by correctional authorities;

First, does the member agree with this as a statement of principles, and if so, would the provisions of the bill actually be included in “assessments...by correctional authorities” that might be made available to the system, to the parole board in making this? Is the bill really necessary?

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I completely agree with the provisions my colleague read.

Here are my thoughts on the non-essential nature of this bill. According to the information my colleague mentioned, it is still up to the boards to take into account the additional factor of refusing to provide a urine sample or failing the test. Even if the person does not pass the test, Bill C-12 does not say that he or she would lose parole because the other factors could be enough.

Perhaps the board will find that the person needs a program. Statistics show that most crimes are committed by people who already have serious drug use problems. That is why eliminating prison programs that can help people stop using that crap leaves them ill-equipped to deal with their addiction after they leave prison.

Still, for reasons like those my colleague listed, the board may decide to let that person go because the board and provincial boards can authorize parole if they believe that the likelihood the offender will commit another crime before the sentence is up does not present an unacceptable risk to society and that parole will help protect society.

[Rob Clarke, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. French is not my first language. I just want further clarification. The member used the word “merde”, which is a profanity in French. Hopefully, my colleague could clarify that for me.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the dictionary does not list it as a profanity. People can even use it in the theatre. Anyone can say “merde”. There are other ways of saying it that could be interpreted otherwise, but as far as I am aware, it is not a prohibited word.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

The Chair will review Hansard, and if there is any cause to return to the House on this matter we will do so.

Secondly, the time had expired for the answer from the member.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Québec.

[Annick Papillon, NDP, Québec, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my hon. colleague's speech and I think she raised a very important point regarding this very conservative vision of public safety. I recognize this vision when the Conservatives say they are tough on crime, for example.

I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on what the Minister of Public Safety said last December, before he was in that role, regarding the mass shooting that had taken place in the United States. He said that it happened at a very bad time.

I wonder what my hon. colleague thinks of that, because I found that comment utterly appalling. It probably explains why we are in this situation and it explains the Conservatives' current policies.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would say that sometimes people speak before they think, although I always try to think carefully about the words I use. Sometimes I am shocked at some of the expressions people use.

Mass shootings are always at the wrong time. There is no good time for a mass shooting. That was a poor choice of words.

I would also encourage my colleagues to look at how he described these kinds of problems when he introduced the new bill on people found not criminally responsible. If someone is found not criminally responsible, it suggests that that individual has some serious, severe problems. The government does not deny that in Bill C-14; the government is simply giving it some framework. We are talking about individuals who have serious, severe mental health issues.

I encourage everyone, including my colleague from Québec, to look up the expression that was used. I do not wish to misquote, so I encourage her to look it up. However, I was shocked myself, because the word choice suggested that being found not criminally responsible was almost a fallacy and something completely disconnected from reality, when in fact, it stems from a very serious mental health condition.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Gatineau for something she raised today, and that is the bumper sticker approach to titling bills. I think it is quite appropriate and it is something we will hear again now that she has brought that into our discourse here.

Maybe the member can say why the Conservatives seem to think we can solve drug problems with moral condemnation and with interdiction. They spent more than $100 million on interdiction measures in the prisons without any impact at all on the rate of drug use. Therefore, where does that leave us with this kind of bumper sticker slogan and huge expenditures on interdiction without getting any results?

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would say that is what I find most troubling about the Conservatives' bills. They give the impression that they are going to make prisons drug-free and they say that they will make the streets safer, but all they are really doing is adopting bumper sticker measures. We can almost assume that they will do nothing else. That is the irony I was trying to get across.

I agree that we should support the bill. However, what I am saying is that they should not lead us to believe that it will make prisons drug-free. Let us be serious. When people read the three small paragraphs, they will not believe that a scourge that the government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to eliminate from prisons will vanish. It will continue to be a problem. It is one of the major problems. People are not fools.

However, if the government really believes that it will make prisons drug-free, we have a serious public safety issue because the government will not do anything else.

That worries me and I am telling the people of Gatineau to be careful, because this government does not really care about making our streets and communities safer. Another example is what they did with the gun registry. Every police force told the government not to abolish it, but it did not listen. However, it will have the police parade around for bills that suit its purposes.

It is always a little worrisome when they try to lead people on. My parents always told me that things are never as simple as they seem. I am more bothered by the use of words like “drug-free” than the one I just used when I said that being in drug hell is rather crappy.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the question to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment is as follows: the hon. member for Ahuntsic, Aboriginal Affairs.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-12, an act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act.

It is something like the bumper sticker approach the previous member talked about. The title of the bill, the drug-free prisons act, is really little more than a rhetorical statement when one examines the content of the bill itself. I will get to that.

First I want to say, after listening to today's question period and the antics of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, that it is quite a contradiction. When we, here in this House, are constantly dealing with so-called tough-on-crime bills, we are actually looking across the aisle at a Conservative government that has to be the most crooked and corrupt government this country has ever seen. There is no question about it. The parliamentary secretary gets up and fires attacks at others, with no basis for those comments. The ones who are heckling over there at the moment stand to support the parliament secretary in those kinds of antics. That is wrong.

I will say it again. This is the most crooked and corrupt government this country has ever seen. Bribes coming out of the Prime Minister's Office—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Order, please.

The Chair would ask the hon. member for Malpeque to have regard to language that he knows is not parliamentary. He is a veteran in this place. I would encourage him to get on with the matter at hand, the business that is before the House.

The hon. member for Malpeque.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I will get on with the business at hand and get to the bill. However, I will say this about what went on here today. If the Speaker is accusing me of using unparliamentary language and unparliamentary antics, then I would ask the Speaker to go back and look at what the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister was saying in this House.

I am one of the individuals he attacked. I would tell the parliamentary secretary to say it out there. That is why I am on my feet on this point. I will leave it at that, but this has to stop, these kinds of antics by this parliamentary secretary in attacking individuals and smearing their names, with no basis in fact.

I will get back to Bill C-12. As I said, the title of the bill, drug-free prisons act, is little more than a rhetorical statement when one examines the contents of the bill itself.

In his 2011-2012 annual report, the Correctional Investigator made the following observation with respect to the prevalence of drugs within our federal prisons:

A “zero-tolerance” stance to drugs in prisons, while perhaps serving as an effective deterrent posted at the entry point of a penitentiary, simply does not accord with the facts of crime and addiction in Canada or elsewhere in the world.

That quote is on page 17 of his report.

Bill C-12 targets individual offenders by imposing requirements for the provision of urine tests subsequent to having obtained parole, statutory release, or an unescorted temporary absence.

This legislation makes no reference to, nor in any respect addresses, the problem of offenders with drug and alcohol addiction problems or in any manner addresses the access and prevalence of drugs within federal institutions.

Currently, under the act, when staff or authorities have grounds to suspect a violation by an offender with respect to drug use while on parole, work release, temporary absences, or statutory release, they can order a urinalysis test. These tests are conducted to ensure that the conditions upon which release was granted are respected and adhered to. Within institutions, such tests can be ordered on a random and collective basis if individuals are, again, on reasonable grounds, suspected of the use of illegal drugs.

Bill C-12 does little to contribute to what the Office of the Correctional Investigator called for in his most recent annual report:

... a comprehensive and integrated drug strategy should include a balance of measures—prevention, treatment, harm reduction and interdiction.

That was in the annual report, 2011-2012, page 17.

While the Liberal Party is supportive of initiatives that will enhance a drug-free prison environment, the issue is with respect to the methods adopted to achieve this objective.

Bill C-12 is taking an exclusively punitive course of action that targets individual offenders who have been granted parole and those being granted statutory release or an unescorted temporary absence. The requirement is that prior to release, the offender, having been approved for release in the case of parole, must provide a urine sample, and in the case of statutory release or an unescorted temporary absence, could be so required.

There is nothing in this legislation related to what appears to be a wider systematic problem of drugs within federal institutions, their prevalence, and their access. Certainly there is nothing in this bill, and I believe other speakers have brought this point up as well, that talks about the cost of these decisions. Will it mean more time in prison? Will it mean more expense? The government always fails in these justice bills to bring in the cost factor along with the bill so that we can see a cost-benefit analysis.

In any event, we know that the Conservatives' whole approach to law and order is punishment, punishment, punishment. Bill C-12 is a measure that at best can be said to address the symptoms of a serious Correctional Service problem without contributing anything of substance to resolving the problem.

I will move away from the bill for a moment and talk about an institution in the private sector, in Guelph, called the Stonehenge Therapeutic Community. It is one of Canada's longest-serving substance abuse treatment programs, with separate facilities for men and women with chronic or acute substance abuse issues. It provides a full spectrum of addiction treatment programs to clients and their families as well as to those involved in provincial and federal corrections. Its services range from what it calls “Let's Grow Together Day” to support groups for pregnant and parenting women in the community, to the long-term residential programs it offers men and women from across Ontario and throughout the country. It has become a benchmark in addiction treatment and prevention, empowering clients with the skills to choose a healthy lifestyle and to thrive within their communities. It is a well-run institution, with quite a history, that has done well with drug abuse and substance problems.

The government's proposed drug-free prisons act really does nothing along those lines. It does nothing in terms of building a strategy to effectively deal with the problem.

The objective of government policy should be to ensure that offenders, when in the process of assessing parole or other forms of release, are less likely to have been exposed to the use of contraband drugs within the institutions. Bill C-12 in no respect aims to address this issue. In fairness to the Correctional Service, and even in fairness to the minister, preventing drugs in prison is not an easy endeavour.

I would suggest that if one were to walk into a prison, pull out a wallet, and take out five twenty dollar bills—I say five, but you, Mr. Speaker, would probably have twenty in yours—as long as they were not brand new, and put it through the machine that tests for drug residue, one would find that a good number of the bills would, in fact, have drug residue on them. It is unbelievable.

I have been in those institutions. I have talked to inmates and Correctional Service workers. In fairness to the government, it is not an easy endeavour to prevent drugs from entering prisons. That is why it is much more important to try to address the issue in a holistic sense.

This legislation would target those who have been granted parole, statutory release, or an unescorted temporary absence. What has to be considered is that a great proportion of the people in federal prison have serious substance abuse problems. They had them before they went in, and sometimes their substance abuse within the institution, sad to say, even with everything that is done, gets worse.

According to the 2011-2012 annual report of the Correctional Investigator, “Almost two-thirds of federal offenders”, keeping in mind that the current population is approximately 15,000, which means an estimated 10,000 offenders are involved, “report being under the influence of alcohol or other intoxicants when they committed the offence that led to their incarceration”.

What is more disturbing is that on page 15 of that report, it states that “A very high percentage of the offender population that abuses drugs is also concurrently struggling with mental illness”.

According to evidence provided to the public safety committee by the Commissioner of the Correctional Service of Canada, “Upon admission, 80% of offenders have a serious substance abuse problem”. He went on to inform the committee that “anywhere up to 90% of a standing prison population would have a lifetime problem of substance misuse or dependence” and “This dependency does not magically disappear when they arrive at our gates”, meaning at the prison gates.

I quote those statistics because it speaks to the seriousness of the problem. Just presenting a drug-free prison bill to the House is not going to solve the problem in any way. It is much bigger than that.

Because the minister may go out there and say, “Look what I've done”, the government cannot take a bumper sticker approach stating that the minister has said that we will have drug-free prisons. The reality is far from that. How does one invoke a strategy about drugs in prisons, one that will work with offenders to get them off drugs and substances, get them back into society and contributing to it in a positive way to the economy of the country and to raising families, rather than costing over $100,000 a year? The government should be looking at that.

The issue of drug prevalence and use within federal institutions is a complex problem. The Correctional Investigator has acknowledged that the presence of intoxicants and contraband substances is difficult to measure and monitor. While a number of seizures under the interdiction initiatives of the Correctional Service of Canada has increased, there is no way of yet determining if “the service is on top of the problem or simply scratching the surface”.

I will give the minister credit for this. In August, the Minister of Public Safety announced a five-year, $120-million investment into CSC's anti-drug strategy. The investment contained the following four components: expansion of drug detector dog teams, hiring of new security intelligence officers, new detection equipment, and more stringent search standards. According to the Correctional Investigator, the results of these measures, although done with good intent and a heck of a lot stronger intent than this bill, appear mixed and somewhat distorted.

For example, while there has been an increase in the amount of drugs seized, the scope of the problem is difficult to determine. With respect to the results of the random urinalysis tests administered, there has been a decline within institutions. However, after correcting for the removal of prescription drugs, the rate of positive random urinalysis tests has remained relatively unchanged over the past decade, despite increased interdiction efforts. Don Head, Commissioner of Correctional Service of Canada, confirmed this conclusion in testimony before the public safety committee in December 2011.

Correctional Service of Canada's current anti-drug strategy, according to the Correctional Investigator, lacks three key elements. I do not see any of these three key elements in this bill, but let us name them. What does the Correctional Investigator claim are the three key elements to deal with an anti-drug strategy within prison? What are they?

First is an integrated link between interdiction and prevention, treatment and harm reduction. Second is a comprehensive public reporting mechanism. Third is a well-defined evaluation, review, and performance plan to measure the effectiveness of investments.

None of that is happening in this bill. What might have been of value prior to Bill C-12 is that these elements would have been addressed by CSC to determine the efficacy of the programs currently in place and upon which Bill C-12 is building.

In my view, it does not bode well that CSC's substance abuse programming budget fell from $11 million in 2008-09 to $9 million in 2010-11. The way to deal with this problem is not by taking money from the very programs that are in effect to deal with the problem itself.

Bill C-12, without the appropriate in-facility measures and assistance, is merely a punitive measure. It may prevent some people from getting out, it will add costs to the system and still, in effect, it will really do nothing about the drug problem at the end of the day.

We will be recommending that the legislation be approved at second reading for further study before committee. I believe there is a lot the government has to answer for in terms of what it has not done to really deal effectively with the drug problems in our prisons.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate some of the comments from the member opposite. I choose to overlook his collective memory failure regarding the previous government having some failures, scandals in leadership, and colleagues who had not paid back their fees and so on.

The member was a former attorney general, and he made some comments about being in prisons and caring about prisoners. As the chair of the fisheries committee, he was a pretty good oyster shucker and he did a great job in that assignment, so I want to give him a little slack in that regard.

I appreciate the member has mentioned that it is not an easy problem to eradicate. It has been around. It is in other countries as well. I had an interesting conversation about this with one of his former cabinet colleagues standing in line at an airport one day. I said, “When they go into prison as an addict, I would hope that we could at least bring them out of prison free of that problem”. The response from that cabinet colleague was, “Oh, no, we have to give them drugs in prison. That is where most of them get on drugs”.

Does the member agree with his former cabinet colleague?

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know who the cabinet colleague was, but that is not necessarily the case. All governments have tried to deal with this problem in some fashion. The difficulty I am seeing with the current government is that in the main it seems to believe punishment will solve the problem.

The Correctional Investigator, dealing with drug issues, has some decent recommendations the government should be looking at, like the three points that I read, and I will not go through them again.

In direct answer to the hon. member's question, the fact is, yes, there are drugs in prisons no matter how hard Correctional Service of Canada folks try to deal with them. How do they get in? Sometimes we find out and sometimes we do not. I expect there are cases in this day and age, as there was in our time when I was solicitor general, when some people go into prison and get pressured into getting into drugs who were never on them before. That should not happen, but it does.

Let us look at the reality. Let us look at the evidence, and not just dream that punishment will solve the problem, because we need a full-fledged strategy, both inside and outside prisons to deal with the drug problem our country has.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as I have said before, the member for Malpeque is proving to be a great addition to the public safety committee and I respect his expertise on this.

Has he any comment on the fact that the government spent more than $100 million over two years trying to improve interdiction programs and that the head of Correctional Service of Canada, at the end of that two-year period, said there was no effect on the rate of drug use in prisons after spending more than is spent on drug treatment programs on interdiction?

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, what the head of CSC, Don Head, said before committee was, in fact, true. There were $120 million and they really have not had the intended impact. That was what the government and the committee needed to look at. Why did that not have an impact? Are there other things that we should be doing?

This is crazy. Does the government think that just doing urine tests on people being released is going to solve the problem? Come on, this is a much bigger issue than this bumper sticker legislation that the NDP talked about earlier. It is a huge issue. It cannot be dealt with through urine tests. It will require a strategy in order to deal effectively with the problem. The answer should be rehabilitation, how to get these people off drugs and keep them off drugs so they can contribute to society again.

[Maria Mourani, Independent, Ahuntsic, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech, and I would like to ask him a question.

While reading the bill, I realized that it would simply enshrine the current practice in law.

Inmates must submit to a urine test when they arrive in jail or are allowed an unescorted temporary absence. The same types of tests are done when inmates from some minimum-security prisons go to work or come back from work, when an inmate is granted parole or a statutory release, and during a supervised release in the community.

The bill provides no concrete way to keep drugs from entering the prison system or keep inmates from using drugs, or to help them recover from a drug addiction. It simply confirms what is already in place.

I would like my colleague to comment on that.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, basically, my colleague is right in her analysis. Yes, drug tests can take place now, but this bill, if I am reading it correctly, mandates the requirement on certain offenders, as they go out on release or other measures, that those urine tests take place. It is a little more compulsory.

The thinking behind the minister in this legislation is, “Just because I'm going to get a urine test, then I'm not going to be on drugs”. It is a much bigger problem than that. The minister is dreaming in Technicolor if he thinks the bill will have any real impact on drugs in prisons. We need a much greater strategy than the government is proposing. We should keep in mind that it is already cutting back on the ways to deal with offenders in prisons with drug addiction problems, to get them off in the first place so they stay off.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for his speech, particularly for his reference to the Stonehenge Therapeutic Community. I had the opportunity to pay a visit to the Stonehenge Therapeutic Community in Guelph about three weeks ago.

The House can imagine my surprise when I was met at the front door of this alcohol and correctional treatment facility by the Chief of Police for the City of Guelph, who happens to be the chairman of the board. There are people in the law enforcement community who get that being tough on crime and having a holistic approach are not one.

Even in our province of Prince Edward Island, as recently as last week, there was a very spirited debate in the legislature on the subject of addictions. One MLA talked very passionately about the Portage program in New Brunswick for youth dealing with addiction, as something that is of great import to those who are struggling. We see in our province the closure by the government of the Addictions Research Centre, a facility that could and should contribute to a more holistic approach.

We have heard Bob Rae say that if the only tool we have in our toolbox is a sledgehammer, everything starts to look like a rock.

This is more in the nature of a comment than a question. I certainly appreciate the perspective of the member as the former solicitor general of Canada, with respect to the differences in approach between the governing party, and the more holistic approach that we would prefer.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Charlottetown for the question, especially for his overview of the Stonehenge Therapeutic Community which he visited.

The short answer is that being greeted by the police chief of the community at that kind of an institution where he is also the chairman of the board shows that the real strategy should not just be hard on crime but smart on crime. That is what that kind of holistic strategy requires. It is one where we work with people to solve their problems and not just exercise punishment.

I am pleased that the member had the opportunity to see the facility.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, how exciting.

At the outset, I would like to mention that I will be sharing my time with my friend and colleague, the wonderful member for Laval—Les Îles.

Mr. Speaker, I like the phrase “bumper sticker justice” that my colleague from Gatineau came up with. That is exactly what we have here. I will support the bill because it does clarify an existing practice of the Parole Board, but it is such a narrow bill that it is hard to wrap one's head around it.

I have two concerns with it, and first is the title. We have been talking about the “bumper sticker” title. The bill is not going to make our prisons drug free. I think there has to be some kind of procedural way to prevent having bills named in a way that is clearly not in line with what the bill actually does. I would look to you, Mr. Speaker, for an answer on that.

It is an extremely misleading name for the bill. As my colleague from Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca pointed out earlier, the title is there for political reasons rather than for sound policy.

The second problem I have with the bill is that it has profoundly little impact in the scheme of things. While it does formalize existing practices, it is not actually going to do anything about drugs or addictions in the prison system. It is not exactly a revolutionary idea that we are dealing with here; it is standard practice. Do I think that prisons will be drug free once the bill is passed? No. Do I think we are going to see a reduction in drug use? No. Do I think we are going to see safer prisons or reduced crime? No.

I am not alone in thinking this. First of all, when we look at zero-tolerance drug policy, we have heard my colleagues say this is an aspirational policy rather than an effective policy response to improved prison safety. If we look at the annual report of the Correctional Investigator for 2011-2012, the report said, “Harm reduction measures within a public health and treatment orientation offer a far more promising, cost-effective and sustainable approach to reducing subsequent crime and victimization”.

The bill does nothing to deal with drugs in prisons in real terms and it also does not deal with the myriad of other problems we have in the prison system, such as overcrowding or the fact that we are not engaging in real, substantive rehabilitation anymore.

The Conservative tough-on-crime agenda is not working. It is not tough on crime; it is pretty stupid on crime. If we are going to seriously tackle crime in our communities and safety in prisons, we need to leave behind this outdated tough-on-crime mantra and mentality. We need to look at smart justice and abandoning that old way of thinking, which is about applying simplistic solutions to really complex issues. It has not brought us very far.

We have heard in the House that since 2008 the Conservative government has spent $122 million on tools to try to stop drugs from entering the Canadian prison system. Members have heard it before, but it is worth pointing out again: this is vastly more money than exists for addiction and treatment services, and I would look to my colleague from Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca. I think it is at around half. It is incredible that we are spending that much more money than we are spending on addiction and treatment services.

That $122 million is a lot of money, and it also sounds impressive, so we have to ask ourselves whether it is working. Is it actually doing anything? I do not think so. I think this continues the failed approach to justice.

We are seeing our prison population grow by about 5% a year. By March 2014, the Correctional Investigator estimates that with new legislation there will be over 18,600 inmates in our prisons. This is the highest number in Canadian history. It is unbelievable that we keep adding to the number of people we are putting in prison, when at the same time, looking at Statistics Canada numbers, in 2012 we reported the lowest crime rate in our country since 1972.

The former minister of public safety said that unreported crime was increasing. How do we know that? It is unreported. That is ridiculous. The crime rate and the severity of crime have been falling since 1991, but the number of people incarcerated—I am not talking about people charged or going through diversion programs, but incarcerated—and the length of incarceration are increasing with mandatory minimum sentencing and other government initiatives.

More people in our prisons obviously leads to increased double-bunking, which frankly leads to increased violence and increased gang activity. I know I would be angry if I were double-bunked. In addition, the majority of these people who are incarcerated suffer from mental illness and addiction. To add to that, we have lists of at least several thousand people who are waiting in line for addiction treatment rather than receiving it. We have had cuts to funding for support and treatment programs. It is backward logic.

We need to start looking at a smart justice approach on how we deal with these issues. Putting more people in prison while overcrowding them and cutting funding for harm reduction programs does not make any sense. These measures are damaging for rehabilitating people who have been incarcerated.

An article in The Kingston Whig-Standard in 2012, entitled “Sentenced to suffering”, said, “Addiction to drugs or alcohol, a history of physical or sexual abuse and previous attempts to harm themselves often follow inmates through the doors of a penitentiary”.

Why would we not act on those issues? Why would we not have a bill that does something to deal with these issues versus bumper sticker justice, saying that we are keeping drugs out of prisons when in fact we are not? The reality of the situation is that we can lock people up, but we cannot close the doors on these social issues that will inevitably affect individuals during the time they are incarcerated and afterward if they do not get the treatment and support they need.

The focus is on punishment and not on rehabilitation, which is overall more costly. When we do not focus on rehabilitation, it is also more dangerous for our communities. The key has to be rehabilitation. However, punishment is a much more splashy title than rehabilitation. It helps the Conservatives with their fundraising, and that is really what this is all about, is it not? Why else would they take a practice that is already happening, turn it into a bill that has nothing else in it, and wrap it up in a fuzzy title called “drug-free prisons act” when it will not actually lead to drug-free prisons?

Not one person on the other side could stand up in the House with a straight face and say that the bill would lead to drug-free prisons. That could be why we have seen such total and utter silence from the other side of the House. They are not standing up to defend the bill, to speak to it, to talk about whether it is good or bad. They are silent because they cannot stand up and say that this will lead to drug-free prisons, or even stand up and say that this will lead to slightly less drugs in prisons. It is enshrining a practice that already exists.

It is about scaring Canadians because I think fear is a powerful tool for keeping citizens in line. They are trying to scare us into Conservative submission. They are trying to scare us into donating to their fundraising campaigns.

We saw the same thing with Bill C-2, a bill limiting supervised injection sites. It flies in the face of a recent Supreme Court of Canada case. On that same day we saw a website launch saying “keep heroin out of our backyards”, showing an empty street and a needle and scary black and white photography.

It is not a call to action. It is not a call for the community to come together and solve the problem of intravenous drug use. It is to raise money. That is what this Bill C-12 is all about. That is why we have bumper sticker justice these days. It is a fundraising campaign.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that the member commented that no one has stood up on this side of the House and spoken on the issue with any conviction, or thought or concern. When I was listening to the hon. member, I thought she was auditioning for a soap box opera. She was becoming theatrical in her approach on that.

As a former officer, I do have significant experience. I have five prisons right in my area, and I have been in every one of them. I wonder how much time the hon. member across has spent interviewing inmates in the cells and talking to victims personally. I do not know.

There was a statement from the member for Surrey North, who said, “Given the very high rate of HIV and other diseases...would it be beneficial to have these needles available to them [all prisoners]”? Does the member agree with that statement?

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am not afraid to talk about things like a needle exchange program in prisons. I am not afraid to talk about harm reduction models. I am not afraid to talk about these issues at all. However, the member opposite knows that is not our party's position.

If he has spent so much time in the prison system, then he will know that people in the prison system are disproportionately aboriginal Canadians. He will know that the numbers disproportionately have African Canadians in prisons, people with mental illness, people with addictions. It is poor people who are in prisons.

He will also know that his and his party's approach to crime control disproportionately impacts Canada's most marginalized citizens. That is not what we need to be doing.

We need to rehabilitate. We need to have the programs to actually prevent these crimes from happening in the future.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

Is the crime rate going down?

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

I just got heckled about whether the crime rate going down. Yes , so why are we putting more people in prison? It makes no sense.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I do think there is another reason beyond Conservative Party fundraising, and that is that we have seen a trend in legislation under the current administration where the shorter the legislation, the greater the public relations spin that accompanies it. Massive bills, like the 440-page bills that change 70 different laws, are slipped under the radar without a press release.

This one claiming to be a drug-free prisons act would bring, as she said, a currently normal practice into high relief with an overblown title. I suggest it is both for current fundraising and for future election purposes. A very short bill with one change to one subsection of the Criminal Code was called “protecting seniors from abuse act”. It did nothing of the kind.

If our goal is drug-free prisons, this would not get us there. I ask my hon. colleague to suggest what we might want to do if we were serious about drug-free prisons.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague's preamble in its entirety. We have a cyberbullying bill that talks about cable bundling. Somehow, I do not think Rogers is really wrapped in the revenge porn scene.

What do I think is the actual solution?

I had wanted to talk about the Smart Justice Network of Canada but, unfortunately, I ran out of time. It is really working in a movement that is a new way of addressing criminal justice issues that solves the problems of crime rather than simply punishing criminals. It tries to address the profound connections of crime to mental health, addiction, employment, education, housing, and social inclusion. Advocates through Smart Justice Network emphasize dealing with crime to shift the focus on a strong component of treatment, training, and reintegration support, which would reduce the risk of reoffending without harmful and costly interventions.

The Smart Justice Network is growing. It has folks in Ottawa, people in Halifax whom I have met with, people in Vancouver. It is starting to grow and really spread its message around Canada and work with people who have expertise in this area, people who have been working in the criminal justice system for decades, to talk about needing a fundamental shift away from this crime and punishment model toward a system that would, in the long term, reduce crime. It is the only way to do it, as far as I can see.

[François Pilon, NDP, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak to Bill C-12, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, or the Drug-Free Prisons Act.

The bill would add to the act a provision confirming that, when deciding whether someone is eligible for parole, the parole board may take into account the fact that the offender tested positive in a urinalysis or refused to provide a urine sample for a drug test. The new provision would give clear legal validity to a practice that we support and is already in place.

Bill C-12's title is misleading. Indeed, apart from giving legal validity to urine tests, it does not offer any real strategy to make prisons drug-free. Rather than providing a concrete solution, for example by investing in inmate rehabilitation, Bill C-12 simply enshrines in law what is already the current practice.

The NDP has always supported measures aimed at making prisons safer. However, it is a shame to see that, in this bill as in so many other government bills, the Conservatives keep ignoring recommendations. In this specific case, they are ignoring recommendations from corrections staff and the correctional investigator that would really help curb violence, gang activity and drug use in the prison system.

The fact is that the Conservatives are making prisons less safe, since they keep reducing investments in key corrections programs like drug addiction treatment, as well as increasing double-bunking, which leads to more prison violence.

Our role as parliamentarians is to worry about the safety of our communities first, by promoting the reintegration of offenders and preparing them to become part of the community again by helping them become free from drugs and taking preventive measures to reduce the risk of recidivism.

None of this is included in Bill C-12, and in my opinion this is a serious shortcoming. To be clear, the stakeholders agree that this bill will have virtually no impact on drug use in prison.

Like so many other government bills, Bill C-12 is just a dog and pony show that plays well to the Conservative base, but offers no actual solution to the problems caused by drugs and gangs in prisons.

However, we must give credit where credit is due. The Conservatives are excellent illusionists. They would make Criss Angel and David Copperfield green with envy. In today's episode, entitled Bill C-12, they are still trying to hide the emptiness of their bills by giving them misleading titles that play well to diehard Conservatives. However, behind this legislation there is a complete vacuum that only worsens the problems they want to address.

In this case, Bill C-12 misses another important problem. Indeed, the Conservatives' misguided approach to public safety, which we also saw with Bill C-2, will significantly increase the collateral harm from addiction, instead of reducing it, as the bill claims to do.

Any government with the least bit of sense, vision and compassion would invest, through Bill C-12, in programs providing support to offenders with drug problems.

This may be hard to believe, but under this government, the budget allocated to the Correctional Service of Canada to be used for basic correctional programs, such as drug treatment, was reduced, while some treatment centres for inmates with mental health disorders were even closed.

The ideological inconsistencies that guide the course of this government are frightening. As an example of such an inconsistency, note that the government passed legislation imposing mandatory minimums, while at the same time it closed numerous prisons.

That leads to the very controversial and dubious policy of double-bunking, which inevitably results in a substantial increase in the number of violent incidents and puts prisoners' lives in danger. It also put the lives of the prison staff in danger.

If the government really wants to address the issue of drug addiction in prison, instead of making a lot of noise and getting terrible results, it must allow Correctional Service Canada to develop an intake assessment process that would allow CSC to correctly determine how many prisoners have addiction issues and offer adequate programs to offenders in need who want to get off drugs. Otherwise, without addiction treatment, education and an appropriate reintegration process on their release, prisoners run a high risk of returning to a life of crime and victimizing other individuals when they get out of prison.

Clearly, the term “prevention” is not part of the Conservatives' vocabulary. That is too bad. The government claims to be tough on crime, but the best way to reduce crime in society is through prevention and awareness, not wishful thinking.

Despite all the bill's flaws or, rather, its lack of content and solutions and its very limited scope, the NDP will support Bill C-12. The NDP is committed to supporting cost-effective measures that are designed to punish criminals and improve prison safety.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of this government, which governs from an ideological standpoint instead of relying on facts and reality. As we can see with this bill and Bill C-2, where the government did not even bother to have someone try to explain their indefensible legislation, we need to move towards a corrections system that offers effective rehabilitation programs such as addiction treatment and support programs so that it is easier to reintegrate prisoners into society upon their release. That is the only way to lower the recidivism rate and really address the issue of repeat offenders.

Even the Correctional Investigator has said—in not one report, but multiple ones—that it could have some unintended consequences on the correctional system if simplistic and narrow solutions are used to address the very complex problem of drug addiction in prison. He suggests taking meaningful action, such as conducting an initial assessment of detainees when they are integrated into correctional programs, in order to curb their drug addiction problem and give them better access to detox programs, which would help reduce drug consumption and gang activity in prison.

Those are the kinds of proactive prevention measures the NDP believes are necessary to truly fix the problem of drug addiction in our prisons.

In conclusion, we will support Bill C-12, since it essentially reinforces the legal significance of a practice that already exists in our prisons. However, we believe that Bill C-12 lacks teeth and substance. We believe that this kind of bill must include solutions to prevent drug addiction and treat drug addicts in our prisons if we truly want to help detainees reintegrate into society and not just find an easy way to please voters.

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. He mentioned that this bill did not do enough, that it did not produce a lot of results and that we could not expect miracles.

Could my colleague talk about how we could do better with a much more proactive approach to address the problems that this bill claims to solve?

[François Pilon, NDP, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Louis-Hébert for his very good question.

It is quite simple. It would be really effective to start by listening to the people on the ground. For years, correctional officers have recommended all kinds of ways to get violence and drugs out of our prisons. As usual, however, the Conservatives have done as they pleased. The government sees no need to listen to experts.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his speech and welcome him to the public safety committee, where I know he is going to make some very important contributions.

I want to go back to something the member for Prince Edward—Hastings raised a few moments ago when he talked about some magic realism connection between the Conservatives tough-on-crime policies and the falling crime rate. I would point out, of course, that the crime rate has been falling for 40 years without the benefit of the Conservative measures.

Then the Conservatives always leap to unreported crime and say the rate is falling because unreported crime is going up. In fact Statistics Canada conducts the general social survey every five years, when it asks Canadians about victimization, and gives us a picture of unreported crime. There is absolutely no evidence that unreported crime is rising.

What we have here is a case of the Conservatives trying to take credit for a social trend with their policies, which have had absolutely no impact in lowering the crime rate. What we do know is that the number of people in prison has been going up despite that declining crime rate, and that the budget for corrections is being cut.

I would like to ask the member how he thinks the Conservatives can square this circle. How can we provide more addiction treatment in prisons when the Conservatives are cutting the budget? Right now the total budget for programming is only 2.7% of the expenditures of the corrections department.

[François Pilon, NDP, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question. Now that I have joined my colleague on the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, I will do my best.

The Conservatives believe in magical thinking. They think that everything will work itself out without any new money. I have no idea where that magical thinking comes from, but I know that it does not work. If the government wants to do something in connection with public safety or anything else, but does not give people the means to eliminate drugs and violence in prisons, it will not happen on its own. The government needs to provide real help. I do not know where the money will come from. Maybe the Conservatives want to privatize prisons, for all I know.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased today to have an opportunity to speak on Bill C-12, an act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. That is the official name of it. Of course, the Conservatives, in their usual way, have called it something else that does not relate to it at all. This act may be cited as the drug-free prisons act.

As I will explain shortly, there is nothing in the act that contributes to or is about drug-free prisons at all. However, that is the Conservatives' way of using legislation as some sort of public relations gesture. Some have suggested that it is fundraising. Someone else has called it, quite rightly, “bumper sticker” legislation. It really has nothing to do with the bill at all.

I was just listening to my colleague, the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, and I want to say what a great job he is doing as the official opposition critic for public safety. He brings his intelligence and his good sense. I will not say common sense because it is not that common, certainly around here. He brings his good sense, experience and articulateness, as well as his great commitment to social justice to this file. This is something that requires all of those things, because it is easy to have slogans.

The Conservatives like slogans. They like using them for fundraising. They like keeping things very short, and in some cases, they think it is meaningful to their supporters or the people who they would like to be their supporters. However, when we look just slightly below the surface, and we do not have to look very far, we find out that these slogans and sloganeering are really just a sham.

This is true of Bill C-12 as well, when we start with the act being the drug-free prisons act and then find out what it is really about. The Corrections and Conditional Release Act is about how we run our prisons, and in this particular case, how people are granted parole.

There are only two or three provisions in this act. In fact, there are five clauses, one of which is the one with the short title, which is clearly irrelevant to the rest of the act. Clause 2 would basically allow an offender to be granted parole. I am talking about someone who has been granted parole but has not yet been released. The clause would give the parole board the right to consider the results of a urine sample or the fact that someone has refused to grant a urine sample. It says that this could be taken into consideration. It would be reported to the parole board and it could be taken into consideration. If the drug urinalysis is positive, it would be reported to the board. That is number one. If a urine drug sample is positive, it would be reported to the board.

The second would allow the parole board, if it was going to grant parole, to either cancel it or impose conditions on it. That makes up the next two sections. The big “if” here is provided that the board is of the opinion that the parolee or prospective parolee no longer meets the conditions of the criteria set out for parole.

Those conditions are relatively straightforward. They would apply to all parolees or potential parolees. They are no different in this case. They would ask, based on the results of the urinalysis, if the opinion of the parole board is that the offender would not, by reoffending, present an undue risk to society before the expiration of the sentence that he or she is serving, and that the release of the offender would contribute to the protection of society by facilitating the reintegration of the offender as a law-abiding citizen.

These are the general principles of parole anyway. This is why parole is granted, and it is very important. Parole is granted, first of all, if there will not be an undue risk to society, and second, if the release will contribute to the protection of society by facilitating the reintegration of the offender into society.

These are basic principles of parole. We are not changing those. The Conservatives appear to support those and they are not changing the legislation. All they are saying is that if the results of the urinalysis cancel out those matters, then the person will not be granted parole.

I do not know what that has to do with the notion of drug-free prisons. In fact, it has nothing whatsoever to do with the notion of drug-free prisons. What we are doing here, as previous speakers have noted, is something the parole board already takes into consideration. It already takes into consideration the results of a urinalysis or the refusal. There is some question as to whether it is appropriate for them to do it, and this would clarify it. It is already being done and this would clarify this power.

We support it. We are here to support it, and I think every speaker from this side of the House, certainly in our party, has stated that we support the principle of the bill to clarify the right of corrections officers to do this and for a parole board to take it into consideration.

What we do not support is the notion that somehow or another this would deal with the problem of drugs in prison. What we do not support is the current government's general attitude toward corrections and what it is doing to our prison system and how, in fact, it is making things worse for prisoners, for the society and for victims or potential victims of crime. The Conservatives talk a lot about victims, that they are on the side of victims and the other side is not.

Victims of crime, yesterday, today and tomorrow, are falling victim to people who commit crimes for whatever reasons. If the criminals are caught and imprisoned and if they are subject to rehabilitation while in prison, they are less likely to commit crimes in the future. One of the biggest problems of criminal activity in this country has to do with drug addiction. The percentage of prisoners who are addicted to drugs is remarkably high. I think the number is 69% for women and 45% for men. Am I quoting those correctly? I read the numbers earlier today. Sixty-nine per cent of women in prisons are addicted to drugs, and 45% of men.

What do we do to make our streets safer? We try to ensure that when these people are federal prisoners, and are in jail for two years or more, they have some program available to them so that when they are released they have a chance of no longer being addicted or of being on the road to recovery. If I were running the prisons, my number one priority for the protection of society would be to ensure that as many people as possible who go out of prison after their sentences are drug free and on the road to recovery. If I could do that, I could say to people in society that they would be safer because these people would have access to a rehabilitation program in prison and a better chance of not being a harm to society.

We have been steadfast as a party in our support for measures to make prisons safer, yet we have the Conservatives ignoring all the recommendations. That in fact makes prisons less safe, not only for correctional staff but for prisoners and for those in society who are going to be subjected to these individuals when they get out, if they are not better off.

We have measures that have been proposed by the correctional investigator who is a watchdog on behalf of the public and by corrections staff who have encounters with the prisoners day in and day out. They have made recommendations that would decrease violence, gang activity and drug use in our prisons, yet we do not see the government acting on these recommendations. We do not even see the Conservatives acting on recommendations that they themselves have made.

The public safety committee did a study in 2010 and produced a report. Their report, and I say their report, because the majority were Conservatives on that committee, was titled “Mental Health and Drug and Alcohol Addiction in the Federal Correctional System”.

These are the two main problems among prisoners: drug addiction and mental health problems. There were 14 recommendations from that committee, from the majority, which sits on the other side, the Government of Canada.

The Conservatives have had three years to come up with legislation or to do things to implement those recommendations. Not one appears in the bill before us, and not one has been implemented by the Conservative government. How serious are they when it comes to being committed to solving the problems of mental health and drug and alcohol addictions in our correctional system? The answer: not at all.

Instead, the Conservatives are focused on some sort of public relations campaign. They are calling something that basically clarifies an existing practice something else and are carrying out a campaign that claims that they are solving problems by reducing the crime rate.

Well, as my colleague for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca pointed out, the crime rate has been going down for 40 years. Yet in 2012, the highest number of persons incarcerated in Canada was achieved. It was the highest number ever in Canada. The all-time high was in July 2012, with 15,000 inmates in federal prisons.

What is the government's response to the lowering crime rate and the highest level of incarceration? It has done two things. The Conservatives have brought in a whole bunch of legislation that would actually increase the number of prisoners. In fact, the Correctional Investigator says that by March 2014, there is going to be an increase of persons in our prisons to over 18,000. Between 2012 and 2014, there will be a 20% increase in the number of federal prisoners from the all-time high of 2012, as the crime rate is going down. What are we achieving here?

By the way, we are also taking $295 million out of the Correctional Service budget. We have less money, 20% less, on top of the highest rate of incarceration ever in our history and a crime rate that has been going down for 40 years. We have a situation where prisons are getting overcrowded, and there is no money left for programming.

The Correctional Service of Canada devotes approximately 2% to 2.7% of its total operating budget on core correctional programs. That includes substance abuse programs. That means that funding for addictions treatment in prison is even less as a result of this $295 million decrease in its budget over two years. No wonder they are being criticized by anyone who has knowledge of the circumstances and the situation, such as the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca.

Let us look at somebody who should be seen as objective, the Correctional Investigator, who has been working on this for many years and is an expert in the area. He has been in our prisons, has talked to people in the programs, and has talked to all the stakeholders. He has issued reports about what goes in our prisons and the problems that have occurred as a result of the policies of the Conservative government. Mr. Howard Sapers, the Correctional Investigator, has listed several Conservative initiatives that he says have undermined the idea that prisoners can be rehabilitated.

The rehabilitation of prisoners is done for two reasons. Obviously, it is the humanitarian thing to do. People can end up in prison for all kinds of reasons, and rehabilitation gives them an opportunity to come out the other end less likely to offend and hopefully, able to contribute to society and to have an opportunity to overcome some of their difficulties, such as addictions, psychological problems, or whatever issue they may have. Hopefully they may learn something that would help them make a living when they are outside so that they can become contributing members of society.

The other reason is that we do not want people getting out of prisons angry, frustrated, with chips on their shoulders, more determined than ever to see themselves as separated from and outside of society. Instead, we want them to be able to contribute to society. We do not want people going out with a propensity to commit crimes, because we will create more victims.

The people on the other side of the House who claim to be in favour of supporting victims should realize that one of the best ways to support victims is to make sure that people who come out of prison have actually rehabilitated so they will not inflict harm on other members of society.

What we have instead is tougher sentencing rules, an end to automatic early release for serious repeat criminals and tough-on-inmate policies, as he calls them. These include charging for telephone calls, increasing room and board charges, eliminating incentive pay for work in prison industries, reducing access to prison libraries. What is gained by that? Do we want to make people who go to prison into hardened criminals, living in unsafe conditions, double-bunking, overcrowding, subject to gang violence, unable to learn by not having access to a library, unable to use the telephone to talk to their relatives and keep in touch with their loved ones so that they have some connection to outside society?

He said:

...making prisons more austere, more crowded, more unsafe and ultimately less effective.... We seem to be abandoning...individualized responses in favour of retribution and reprisal.

That is what the correctional investigator says, and he is saying that because it is less effective as a prison in terms of rehabilitating people.

My colleague from Halifax mentioned the issue of the prison population. Mr. Sapers said that the entire increase in our prison population over the last little while has been made up of aboriginals and members of visible minorities. Aboriginals now make up 23% of federal prisoners, though they are just 4% of Canadians. They are overrepresented in prisons by five and a half times their population. Something is wrong with this picture. Where are the programs that are available for these individuals?

The problem is that only about 12% of prisoners have access to these broad rehabilitation programs. There are wait lists of 35% of prisoners, waiting to get into programs. Their sentence is over before they get a chance to get any access to rehabilitation, and we have this revolving door phenomenon. The other side would call them repeat offenders. Yes, they are repeat offenders, and why? Because they do not get rehabilitated and they do not get access to programs while they are there.

We have a situation that Howard Sapers sums up this way:

You cannot reasonably claim to have a just society with incarceration rates like these. And most troubling, the growth in the custody population appears to be policy, not crime, driven. After all, crime rates are down while incarceration rates grow.

We have a serious problem in our prisons. We are making it tougher on inmates, and some people like that. They have committed crimes. They deserve to be treated harshly. There are a few out there who do. However, if we scratch the surface, we say that these are human beings who deserve to go to jail because they are sentenced for a crime, and the old saying is, “You do the crime, you've get to be prepared to do the time”, so they do the time, but what happens then? Do they go out better off and less likely to commit a crime, or do they come out a hardened criminal and more likely?

If we want to protect society, we have to ensure that criminals are rehabilitated. We have to ensure that people in prisons have access to programs, including drug rehabilitation programs. We do that by paying attention to these issues, by listening to people who know what is going on and having a better prison system, not by having phony bills that are called drug-free prisons when they are really just implementing something that is accomplished already in our Parole Board.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Minister of State (Western Economic Diversification)]

Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of questions for my hon. colleague.

First, my colleague, the opposition critic for the environment, gave a speech earlier today on this matter and spoke about the $122 million that we have invested as a government to increase the capacity to monitor and detect drugs in prison. She asked if this is working, said she did not think so, and then pointed to prison population growth. I would like to give my colleague an opportunity to clarify those comments in terms of acknowledging that actual detection of drugs in the prison system is an important part of deterrence and if he thinks this money was a positive thing.

My second question is a little more esoteric. We have heard a lot about perpetrators. I agree that we have to look at our crime system in a very holistic way, but I did not hear anything about victims' rights. I would like to give him an opportunity to talk about some of the items that he brought up within the context of respecting the fact that we also have to look at victims' rights and protections through the penal system and if we can, as he said, square that circle.

I am also wondering if I could beg his indulgence and wish my mother a very happy birthday. I am sorry I am not there today, mom.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure we will all indulge the hon. member in wishing her mother happy birthday.

As to her questions, first, the $122 million that was invested in an attempt to reduce drugs in prisons was actually a total failure. It was a waste of money.

The head of Correctional Service of Canada, Don Head, has acknowledged that it has not done anything to reduce the amount of drugs, so it was basically wasted money. I think the other stakeholders and experts would say that as well. I am not saying the money was not spent, but it was money that did not do any good. If that money had been put into addictions programs, we probably would have had a better result.

My colleague made reference to victims and that I did not talk about victims' rights. I actually asked an earlier question about what is taken into consideration by parole boards in granting parole in the first place. One of the things taken into consideration that New Democrats support, by the way, which my colleague, the justice critic, acknowledged, is that victims' rights and victims' circumstances are taken into consideration when looking at parole.

I have said many times in the House that there is a lot of talk about victims' rights, but I have not heard the government talk about providing federal funding for the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board, which used to be a feature of the Government of Canada's support for victims. Criminal injuries compensation boards existed across this country with federal and provincial contributions. Many of them have shut down for lack of support. I have made a lot of comments about victims benefiting by having proper programs in prisons so that people do not reoffend.

Obviously, they are taken into consideration at the time of sentencing. That is extremely important, and New Democrats support that fully.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the member for St. John's East sees the same pattern that I see when we talk about drugs and the Conservative policy on drugs.

In 2007, the Conservative government removed harm reduction from the goals of our national drug policy. Bill C-2 is on safe injection sites, and the government is treating it as a public security matter rather than a health matter. In talking about drug-free prisons, it is a failure to acknowledge that addiction is a medical problem rather than a moral problem.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, clearly addiction has a significant medical part to it. Part of addiction is related to the physical addiction to the drug. It drives people to criminal activities for the sake of the addiction, so to get at the problem of crime related to drug addiction, we have to get at the addiction. Whatever makes that work and can help make that work ought to be considered by any government that is serious about reducing addictions and crime. Obviously that includes some of the measures the member was talking about in terms of harm reduction, but by removing that as a possibility, the government has removed the possibility of reducing addictions in our society.

In fact, as we heard in the debate on Bill C-2 and the information that stakeholders provided, people are dying who would otherwise live and survive to fight their addictions if proper programs were in place. The government does not seem to be sensitive to that at all.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member for St. John's East and I will agree on this issue as I am a firm believer in rehabilitation. When there is a lack of rehabilitation, it has far-reaching circumstances, particularly as the member said, most of these folks are going to be integrated back into society at one point.

However, I do take issue with him on a couple of other points. He mentioned at CSC there was a dramatic escalation in costs that would be assumed budget-wise and by the projections. Yet when the actual costing was allocated, CSC turned $1 billion back for the simple reason being that those estimates did not meet the actual expenditures and they were wrong. I would take issue with his statement that the costs are going to keep escalating dramatically.

The only other point that I would make is we do appreciate the NDP's tepid, tentative support for the actual bill. I find it, and I should not say amusing because it is certainly not an amusing bill, it is a very serious bill, yet the major complaint we have heard from the members is that they do not like the name. Unfortunately, that is some of the semantics of politics in general. However, I am confident in the capacity of the bill and I would ask the member to comment on the budget variance.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, it is very good to hear that some people on the other side actually believe rehabilitation is important.

I do not think the bill is amusing. The title is not amusing but ludicrous because it bears no relation to the bill. It is being used for extraneous purposes, whether it is fundraising, or public relation or bumper-sticker politics.

As to the budget matter, I did not say anything about increasing costs. I said that the populations were increasing by 20%, according to the projections of the correctional investigator. However, the Conservatives are cutting the budget by $295 million when we already have a very small percentage of all of the correctional budget being used for core programs or rehabilitation.

If the member and I agree that rehabilitation is of great importance, then we ought to be spending more money on rehabilitation, on programs for addictions and other programs that are going to help people when they get out of prison, as most of them do. Obviously, there are people with life sentences who are going to serve much of their sentence and there are people who are going to have a great deal of difficulty getting parole because they are deemed likely to reoffend, but most people are going to get out. These are the ones I am concerned about. If they get out, they should be getting out in better shape than they went in, rehabilitated with some chance that they will get out and not reoffend. That is the whole purpose of rehabilitation. We need more money for that.

I am not making projections about where the budget is going to go, but we do have projections of a 20% increase in the size of the prison population with not enough money, more overcrowding and nastier policies—

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

The projection's wrong.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

It is wrong to have more overcrowding and worse conditions in prisons because it would lead to greater crime, not lesser crime.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to present my thoughts on Bill C-12 today.

The first comment I would like to make about the bill is about its title. The Conservative members have said that they find the title funny. I do not find it funny at all. I think it is misleading.

When the title of a bill states that it will eliminate drugs in prisons, but no part of the bill actually comes up with ways to do that, not only is it misleading, it seems deceitful. I do not find it at all funny when the Conservatives introduce bills that do not fulfill their stated objectives and that, furthermore, will have a negative impact on the public safety of Canadians.

I would like to talk about the objective of the bill before us today. It makes an existing practice official. Currently, an offender who is found, by means of a blood test, to have taken drugs will not be granted parole. That practice already exists; this bill makes it official.

If the title of the bill talked about regulating a situation that already exists and respecting correctional service officers by giving them the tools they have been asking for, that would show good faith. This bill says one thing and does the exact opposite. We find it very hard to support a bill that does not respect its own objectives.

This bill's scope is so limited that the opposition will have a hard time not sending it to committee. This bill does so little that the Conservatives need to ask themselves if they really think they can eliminate drugs from prisons. They could do a lot better than slashing $295 million from the budget of Correctional Service Canada. This measure will not help control harmful situations in prisons; on the contrary. It will make an already bad situation worse.

Parole has an objective. When an inmate is released, the number one priority is monitoring him in order to protect the public. As for the number two priority, the public security department in Quebec says that parole is aimed at rehabilitation. Specifically, the objective is as follows:

Parole release enables offenders to pursue the steps begun during detention to resolve problems that contributed to their encounters with the criminal justice system.

The objective of parole is not only to ensure public safety, but also to help the individual reintegrate into society as a good, law-abiding citizen who also respects his fellow citizens.

Today, as people are well aware, most inmates enter the correctional system with some sort of substance abuse problem. In fact, 80% of inmates have a history of substance abuse. This statistic is very troubling.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I need to ask the hon. member if he will be sharing his time.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Beaches—East York.

Let us now return to the issue at hand.

The goal of rehabilitation is to allow offenders to be released on parole so that society can be sure that they are acting in good faith, that they can obey the law and that they can respect their fellow citizens. This also helps offenders to prepare to reintegrate into society. They will thus contribute to society and may be able to find a job. They can be citizens that Canada will be proud of.

However, the bill does allow for any progress in that area. Not only will there be no progress, but the significant cuts to Correctional Service Canada may even make the situation worse. What is more, an increasing number of prisoners are double-bunked. Canada's prison population has reached a record high. Last year, Canada had over 15,000 inmates. It can therefore be expected that, in March 2014, Canada's prison population will reach close to 20,000 inmates. The prison population is growing much faster than it should be.

This begs the question: does a higher prison population make Canadian society safer? In my opinion, the answer is no. These inmates will eventually be released. If they receive very little or no assistance at all with their addictions, they will not have the opportunity to gradually reintegrate into society while being monitored and given support. These individuals will eventually be released back into society but in a way that is less safe than when they went to prison.

Funding has been allocated to Correctional Service Canada with the so-called intent of decreasing the use of drugs within prisons. However, from what we have seen to date, these investments have not had any impact at all. The government allocated funding to Correctional Service Canada in order to put an end to drug exchanges in prisons. Unfortunately, less was invested in treatment and the reduction of risk, which is what might actually work. Time and time again in Canada, we have seen that if addicts are given medical treatment, then they have a much greater chance of overcoming their addictions. We want to help these people.

Prisons are not just a holding tank where prisoners are left to reflect on the laws they have broken and people's rights they have violated. In prison, an inmate can come to the realization that some tools may help him to change his attitude and become a better citizen, one who contributes to society.

The title of the Drug-Free Prisons Act is misleading. Let us be honest. The bill will not reduce drug use in prisons and will not make prisons drug-free. The only thing this bill will do is put back in prison offenders who are about to be paroled. It will increase the prison population at a time when budgets are being cut.

The Correctional Service of Canada budget was recently cut by almost 10%. That is going in the wrong direction. We absolutely have to invest in prisons so they can become centres for social reintegration and not just a place to incarcerate people and forget about them all the while hoping that they will return to society by osmosis.

These people need support and assistance. The Parole Board is there to help them return to society. Unfortunately, offenders' access to parole will be curtailed further.

If the bill passes second reading and goes to a committee, I hope that the Conservatives will carefully study it and consider the corrections aspect and not just the emotional pull. In committee, we will carefully study how to improve this bill in order to gradually eliminate drug use in prison.

That will not happen with this bill. It will have the opposite effect. More inmates will remain in prison and will remain drug addicts. They will want more and more drugs. Furthermore, it will become increasingly difficult to manage the situation because of the budget cuts. I hope that we will have the opportunity to solve this problem in committee.

[François Pilon, NDP, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine for his excellent speech. He spoke about the recommendations that were put forward to the Conservatives regarding this bill.

Does my colleague know why the Conservatives did not take those expert recommendations into consideration when they wrote Bill C-12?

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it really is a mystery. The Conservatives seem to feel that expert opinions are not that important or necessary, and not only for this bill, but for many others as well.

We saw it with Bill C-2. We are seeing the same problem with other addiction-related bills. The Conservatives seem to have their minds made up: these people need to be put in prison and left there as long as possible, instead of dealing with what, in essence, is a disease.

Science really must be taken into consideration. We must also look at treatment options to help people become model citizens who can contribute to our society. Unfortunately, with the bills we have seen since the Conservatives formed a majority, we seem to be moving in the wrong direction. There are fewer resources for experts and more prison sentences. It could ultimately lead to a volatile situation.

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his speech. He brought up various problems. For one, budgets are being cut and the prison population is on the rise, even though crime is decreasing. The focus is not on rehabilitation but on harsh treatment for those who commit crimes. In addition, corrections officers are facing greater safety issues in a growing prison system.

Could my colleague talk about what could be done differently to rehabilitate people and ensure a safer society at the same time?

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like thank my colleague for his question and congratulate him for the great work he is doing in his committee.

The most important thing to do is to see how we can help people integrate into our society. I am speaking about both offenders and regular people with addictions. Both groups need more support to break the vicious circle that makes them feel they have no choices left. They see no choice other than a life of crime to obtain more resources to pay for their addictions.

We should have more tools and ways to help people fight addiction. They should be able to seek help in centres like InSite in Vancouver. If we could give them more support, I am confident we would have a much safer society. In addition, we would have people who are far more likely to contribute to our society. We must invest more in rehabilitation and treatment and less in incarceration.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I sat on the public safety committee. The Commissioner of Corrections Canada testified a number of times, as did correctional officers. They told the committee time and time again about the valuable programs that are put in place in the correctional facilities across Canada.

I know from being a deputy superintendent of a correctional facility in the Yukon that correctional centres, albeit the last location one would want to send people, are locations for help, hope and healing when programs are put in place. However, the member opposite stood here and for 10 solid minutes said, without substantiation, that nothing is being done. There is $154 million that is put into the correctional centre for core programming, including drug and alcohol treatment, in Canadian penitentiaries every year. That is not nothing.

When the commissioner testifies in front of the public safety committee, he is proud of the core programming, the educational programming and the drug treatment programming that they deliver.

Bill C-12 is dealing with a point at which an inmate is about to be released. If they are still on drugs when they are about to be released, that must be considered. I wonder if the member opposite has a comment about the point at which we need to start turning inmates back for continued programs if they are still on drugs on the day they are being assessed to be reunited with the community?

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, if the programming he is referring to is so efficient, why is there a waiting list?

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising today to speak to Bill C-12, as members will be aware.

However, if I may take advantage of my great privilege to speak in this place, I will preface my comments with special wishes for my friend, Nancy Mutch. Nancy for many years volunteered in Jack Layton's constituency office, and since Jack's death, has volunteered in mine. She has a golden heart, but for a couple of weeks now has been in Toronto East General Hospital under great medical care but engaged in a difficult struggle. She has always paid special attention to what goes on in this place, so I am hoping Nancy will hear me say, when I say it here, to keep fighting, that we love her, and that we need her back on the phones.

Drug addiction in our prison system is a serious problem. We have well established that so far this afternoon. It is serious, because it is linked to inmate violence and gang activity in our prisons. It threatens the safety of our correctional officers, makes it difficult for offenders to effectively reintegrate into the community once they are released, and leaves them much more likely to reoffend.

However, serious problems need serious solutions. Not only does Bill C-12 not offer any serious solutions to the drug problems in our prisons, it in fact offers no solutions at all. It has been a long-standing practice at the Parole Board to use drug tests as a tool to evaluate an offender's eligibility for release. All this bill would do is validate this practice. It is, in effect, another lame effort by the Conservatives to appear tough on crime and tough on drugs without doing anything at all to help us solve the complex problems related to drug use in our prisons.

This bill has been called, so accurately and evocatively, bumper sticker policy by my colleague from Gatineau, the justice critic for our caucus.

The Conservatives' effort to eliminate drugs from our prisons has been a remarkable failure. Proving themselves once again to be the great mis-managers of the public purse, the Conservatives have now spent more than $120 million on this interdiction effort, and according to the correctional investigator, this spending has had no impact on the prevalence of drugs and drug use in our prisons.

To sincerely address the problem of drug use in prisons, the Correctional Service needs to develop a proper intake assessment for all new inmates that can evaluate their needs for addiction and mental health programming and rehabilitation. It is only by providing proper addiction and mental health treatment and education to offenders that we can actually have an impact on the prevalence of drugs, violence, and gangs in our prisons.

According to the correctional investigator, the Conservatives' current anti-drug strategy lacks three key elements. First is an integrated and cohesive link between interdiction and suppression activities and prevention, treatment, and harm-reduction measures. Second is a comprehensive public reporting mechanism. Third is a well-defined evaluation, review, and performance plan to measure the overall effectiveness of these investments.

The correctional investigator's report goes on to say

A “zero-tolerance” stance to drugs in prison, while perhaps serving as an effective deterrent posted at the entry point of a penitentiary, simply does not accord with the facts of crime and addiction in Canada or elsewhere in the world. Harm reduction measures within a public health and treatment orientation offer a far more promising, cost-effective and sustainable approach to reducing subsequent crime and victimization.

Not only have the Conservatives made no progress in improving the drug situation in our prisons, they have actually made the situation worse. While the Conservatives have been happy to waste millions of dollars of public money on “drug-free prisons”, despite a consensus among experts that these efforts are ineffective, they have made cutbacks in core correctional programming that includes support for treatment for addiction and mental illness. Today federal offenders with drug-addiction problems face long wait lists before they can get treatment. There are currently over 2,400 prisoners waiting for addiction treatment in our country in federal prisons, and this situation is absolutely unacceptable.

It is unacceptable, because too often this results in offenders being released from prison without ever having access to appropriate treatment for their addictions. This leaves them more likely to commit crime and end up in the correctional system once again.

While the Conservatives like to think that they are tough on crime and they like to put forward empty gestures such as the bill before us, their policies have actually increased the chances that offenders will be released from prison as addicted to drugs as they were on the day they were arrested. Our communities have become less safe, not more safe, because of these policies.

Last year, the number of people incarcerated in Canada reached an all-time high, with over 15,000 federal inmates, and that number is projected to rise to almost 19,000 by next year. Despite these trends, budgets for addiction treatment and counselling in our corrections system have been decreasing.

Our prisons are becoming more and more overcrowded, with the practice of double-bunking increasingly becoming the norm. This is a situation that fosters the proliferation of gangs and violence in our corrections system. This situation puts the safety and security of our federal corrections officers in jeopardy.

The federal government has a duty to ensure that work conditions are safe for every citizen under federal jurisdiction in this country, but it has a particularly sacred duty to ensure the security of those who put their lives on the line for the public, such as the federal police, our military and corrections employees.

Conservative cutbacks and jail overcrowding have made the job of our corrections officials more dangerous, according to the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers. A recent article in the Huffington Post quotes corrections officer Trevor Davis, who works at the William Head Institution on Vancouver Island, as saying, “[The Prime Minister] wants to be tough on crime...but he’s not giving us the resources to do it properly”. As Mr. Davis puts it, “[The Tories] are making our jails unsafe.”

We talked about this matter this morning at length in the context of Bill C-5, about the current, and frankly, previous governments' disregard for the issue of workplace health and safety. Let me come back to Bill C-12 and the bumper sticker approach to drug-free prisons. The bill would not render our prisons drug free. It would simply turn practice into law and leave a dire situation, the need for assessment and treatment for the incarcerated in the interest of public safety, untouched.

According to the report of the Correctional Investigator, close to two thirds of offenders were under the influence of intoxicants when they committed the offence leading to their incarceration. That is a statistic closely connected with the fact that 80% of offenders arrive at a federal penal institution with a past history of substance abuse. The bill would change none of that. It would send offenders back into the population without ever seriously addressing the circumstances that gave rise to their offences.

That is the stuff of this government and its bumper sticker politics. It is beneath this place and all of us, but it is to this kind of politics from the Conservative government that we have unfortunately become accustomed.

With that, I welcome any questions.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I suppose we should all put on our hard hats, because it sounds as though the sky is falling.

I remember in 2011, when the NDP said that the prison population was going to be 20,000 after 2011. Now, today, the member opposite stands up and says it is at 15,000, but just wait until 2014 when it will be 20,000. It was supposed to be 20,000 in 2011. We were on a prison building agenda in 2011, according to the NDP. Then we got criticized for closing prisons down.

Here again, in the House, what we get is continued fearmongering about prison populations and the work that we are doing. I reiterate that $154 million is invested in the Canadian prison system to work directly on core programming and education, including substance abuse and addictions programs.

The member opposite made an interesting point about the care and concern for workers. We had a corrections worker testify in committee who said:

As a front-line staff member, I can say we spend a lot of time with the inmates. It needs to be drug free. It has to go right out of the system in order for them to make the proper choices, move forward with healing, and create a safe environment. There are a lot of pressures in the correctional facility on people trying to get drugs, do drugs, force other people to do drugs, and collect drug debts. It's the whole nine yards. To have drugs and alcohol right out of the system would help us in our job....

That is what our government is attempting to do. That is at the behest of correctional officers who work very hard in this country every day. Their safety is our priority. I ask the member opposite to stand behind them and support the legislation.

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I find it very rich for the member opposite to be accusing the NDP of fearmongering. The government constantly raises the fears of the public in an effort to raise funds for their party coffers.

What we are pointing to is in fact a very real situation of a high level of offenders in our prison system having drug problems. What we are proposing are real solutions for rehabilitation and treatment of those who are incarcerated with substance abuse problems, so that when they get released the likelihood of reoffending is lessened and the chances of improved public safety is greater.

With respect to the budget numbers that the member threw around, it is interesting to note that the correctional services overall budget cut announced last year was almost $300 million. At the best, the correctional services devotes only about 2%, or about $1,000 per prisoner per year, to these core correctional programs that the member references.

This is hardly enough to improve public safety and deal with the issue of drugs in our prisons.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for a very eloquent and thoughtful presentation on a bill that has a name that is more like a bumper sticker. However, in content all it does is put into law what the Parole Board already does. It has nothing in it that I can see that would help us to move towards drug-free prisons, or do anything in the short term.

My question to my colleague is, with an increasing population in our prisons, with double-bunking, cuts to the budget, specifically around correction and drug abuse, what is in this bill that would help to keep our prisons free of drugs?

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the short answer is nothing. With regard to the longer question, I would like to go back to the question from the member for Yukon about the sky falling.

The numbers we on this side of the House have been citing with respect to increasing prison populations come from the correctional investigator. There were 15,100 inmates in federal prisons as of July last year. The correctional investigator anticipates there will be 18,684, based on new Conservative public safety and justice legislation, for example, mandatory minimum sentences.

The closing of certain facilities and the increasing population is adding to the problem of double-bunking, and directive 55 makes this the new norm. Again, this does nothing to help with public safety and the chance for offenders to come out after their time served to be productive members of our community.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Before I recognize the hon. member for Chambly—Borduas to resume debate, I have to inform him that I will have to interrupt him at around 6:30 p.m. because that will be the end of the time allotted for government orders. I will tell him how much time we have left and the hon. member will be able to finish on another day.

The hon. member for Chambly—Borduas.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the same questions keep coming up. When we talk about public safety, we always get the same old simplistic platitudes to try to describe our position on this file, which we believe is the responsible one. I can certainly address several points that are often raised by our Conservative colleagues.

Before getting deep into this discussion on Bill C-12, I would like to tell a story.

I had just recently been elected. This was in January 2012, if I am not mistaken, so almost a year after the election. We were taking part in an activity that we organize every year and that takes place in Chambly. It is an informal reception organized by community organizations that gathers all MNAs and MPs from the region to discuss issues of concern for the coming year. Often the issues are smaller and more local and involve funding for the organizations and their goals. However, there are many organizations working on prevention with young offenders. At that time, the omnibus Bill C-10 was a significant source of concern for some of these organizations.

I would venture to say that the points that were raised still apply today. Those involved are proud of the position that I took. It is also the position of all of my colleagues and of our party, which is responsible, despite what the members opposite may say. Public safety is certainly not an easy issue. We must create a society in which people feel safe, a society where they not only feel safe but truly are safe. We need to do this in a responsible manner. For example, people who are ill must be treated, whether they are dealing with a mental illness or an alcohol or drug addiction, which is what we are talking about today. This requires some compassion. I hesitate to use the word compassion because the members opposite practically consider it to be a bad word. It is difficult to balance compassion and safety, but we are trying to do just that. It is not easy, but we did not choose to go into politics to face easy challenges. We are prepared to take on that challenge. I believe that our public safety critics, my colleagues from Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca and Alfred-Pellan, and our justice critic, the hon. member for Gatineau, who sometimes works with them, do an admirable job in this area.

They do their work responsibly, rather than boiling these very complex issues down into catchy phrases such as the title of the bill, which has been referred to many times today as a bumper sticker policy. The title is dishonest by the way.

Saying that the bill will help to do away with drugs in the prison system is dishonest because the bill basically legislates to implement a practice that is already used by the parole board. That practice will now be enshrined in law. Of course we support this bill. We do not have a problem with enshrining an existing practice into the law or with doing away with inappropriate actions associated with this practice. However, when we talk about getting rid of drugs, we have to keep in mind that drug addiction is an illness and treat it as such.

I spoke about the approach that my constituents shared with me in forums, such as the informal reception that I mentioned, and in the letters they write to me, because every time we talk about justice or public safety, the government always accuses us of being against public safety, and that is not true.

Interestingly, the people in my riding are very proud of our approach. Given how the government is handling this issue, it seems to be suggesting that the people in our communities, the ones who elected NDP MPs, are less concerned about safety in their communities, but that is absolutely wrong. The difference is that, in addition to advocating for safety, we also advocate for solutions to social problems everywhere, including in the prison system.

As I have said before, the problem is that this is a disease. I have said it before and I will say it again. What do we do with people who are sick? We try to make them well. This is a public health problem. I really want to emphasize that because in the end, we are not doing this just for the individuals, but for the community. By the time these people come back into our communities, back into society, we want to have done our part as citizens and as legislators by creating an environment that will support their reintegration and help them get better. People around them will feel safe knowing that we have stepped up to help these people. I see no shame in that. It is a balanced approach that people are very proud of; at least the people in my riding are.

Since this debate started today, whenever we talked about treatment and the fact that these are diseases and that we should do more to protect public health, others have talked about all the funds invested in various programs. That is not enough. We hear about waiting lists, and a Conservative member claims that those lists are a sign the program is working, but the opposite is true. Those people are not there because they want to stand in line for treatment. We have to take this problem more seriously, and we will not solve it by cutting resources, which is what has been going on for a long time. When the government says that it has invested a certain amount, once again, it has to specify that it is covering only one small aspect, among many, of drug treatment. It is not a priority. It is an amount invested in the prison system—not to mention all of the cuts—and only a small percentage is actually allocated to this major problem.

If we do not take this problem seriously, we would be sending the wrong message to the communities that might reintegrate these people after their release. In addition, this problem also affects the employees of the corrections system. In prison environments, the same phenomenon is seen when it comes to double-bunking: a government that does not care about the details, and when we try to point them out, it accuses us of standing up for criminals, although that is not the case.

We want to create a safe environment for people who work there, such as the prison guards, but also an environment where these problems do not spread any further. For instance, it is important to help people who enter the system with substance abuse problems, which will also prevent the spread of such problems. If that is not done, substance abuse will continue despite our best efforts, and will spread to other people. We will have done nothing to solve the problem. I do not believe that such a bill solves the problem. Once again, we will be supporting this bill, but the fact remains that it is not nearly enough.

It is as though we have travelled only half a kilometre on a journey that is 100 kilometres long. Much more is needed, although that is not what this government is doing.

If we do not help these people and if we do not take this scourge seriously, we will do nothing to eliminate the problem of drugs in our prisons.

Coming back to the bill's title, it talks about making our prisons drug free, but that is not what this bill does. The Conservative Party is not addressing the real problems. Even worse, it is going to try to get itself re-elected based on a bill's title that gives the impression that it actually does something. As an MP, I find that unacceptable, and my constituents share that opinion.

I would not be surprised to see a fundraising letter from the Conservative Party boasting about what it did to eliminate the problem of drug use in prisons, saying that this is how it got drugs out of our prisons.

What happens then? The voters and even the members of the Conservative Party who want to fix this problem as much as we do will get the impression that something was done, when in fact, the government simply adopted a band-aid solution. The issue is much more serious than this bill and the Conservative Party's rhetoric would have us believe. It is not just a matter of safety, but also a matter of health.

I think that putting on rose-coloured glasses and ignoring the problem shows a lack of respect. Earlier I mentioned addressing this issue responsibly, and it is not as though the government is not trying to solve the problem. It is interesting that a Conservative member who sits on the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security told my colleague from Beaches—East York during his speech, that the NDP was acting as though the sky was falling.

I know our public safety critic very well and I know that he would never resort to exaggeration. He is very thoughtful and insightful. I know from experience that he makes fair and sensible proposals in committee to fix public safety problems.

In conclusion, we will support this bill, but we urge the Conservative government to take this issue as well as public safety more seriously. We are calling on the government to stop taking intellectual shortcuts and accusing us of supporting the criminals. That is ridiculous and it needs to stop.

We need to start acting responsibly, to fix public safety problems and also to create an environment in which our constituents feel safe. Furthermore, when people get out of prison and reintegrate into our communities, we will have taken a step in the right direction to try to combat their illness.

It is time to stop insulting the NDP and claiming that we do not take this seriously. We do take this seriously. The Conservatives need to stop telling me that I do not take my constituents' safety seriously. That is untrue. I also take public health problems seriously. This is the balanced approach that my constituents support. I hope that they are proud to see that the NDP supports this, and this is certainly the responsible approach we will take to form an NDP government.

We must stop using a black or white approach to public safety. We must stop causing division in our communities. It is time we realize that we can both help the people who are seriously ill and keep communities safe. Any rhetoric that encourages disdain or cynicism is no use when it comes to this issue. We must keep this in mind as we debate this bill.

We will support this bill. I am fully confident in my colleagues who will discuss these issues further in committee.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. member for Chambly—Borduas will have five minutes for his speech when the House resumes debate. Of course, the time allotted to questions and comments will be 10 minutes.

Bill C-12—Notice of time allocation motion

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to advise that an agreement could not be reached under the provisions of Standing Orders 78(1) and 78(2), with respect to the second reading stage of Bill C-12, an act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act.

Under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3), I give notice that a minister of the Crown will propose at the next sitting a motion to allot a specific number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings at the said stage of the bill.

The House resumed from November 25, 2013, consideration of the motion that Bill C-12, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Drug-Free Prisons Act

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for the great riding of Sherbrooke. It is not as great as the great riding of St. John's South—Mount Pearl, but it is a close second.

I stand in support of Bill C-12, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, also known as the drug-free prisons act. However, that title is incredibly misleading as the bill before us will not lead to drug-free federal prisons, I am sorry to say.

There is not a chance of drug-free prisons without two things: resources and rehabilitation. However, the word “rehabilitation” is not in the Conservative dictionary. It is not in the Conservative budget. It is not in the Conservative mindset. Good luck to the interpreters trying to explain the concept of rehabilitation through the Conservative earpieces. The interpreters will earn their money this evening. The bill would do nothing, if anything, to achieve drug-free prison status.

Bill C-12 would do is add a provision to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act whereby the Parole Board may use a positive urine test for drugs or refusal to take a urine test in making its decisions on parole eligibility. In other words, if one is a prison inmate and tests positive to a urine test for drugs, or refuses to take that urine test, the inmate may not get out on parole.

Now the rub with the bill before us is that the Parole Board of Canada already considers prison drug tests when making its decisions on the eligibility of offenders for parole. Therefore, there is nothing new in the bill. It would just give clear legal authority to an existing practice that the New Democratic Party of Canada supports. So the title, “drug-free prisons act”, is misleading, as I said earlier. There is nothing new here.

Now, oddly enough, when I was preparing for this speech and reading up on the drug-free prisons act, my thoughts kept turning to seals, for example, harp seals in the north Atlantic. I can see from the look on the members faces that they are puzzled. How can I make the leap from the drug-free prisons act to seals? I will explain.

Back in early March, I gave a speech right in this very spot in support of Bill C-555, an act respecting the marine mammal regulations. The bill would increase the distance that an unofficial observer, a seal hunt protester, for example, must keep from sealers going about their business of killing seals. Right now, it is against the law for an unofficial observer to come within a half nautical mile of the hunt. Bill C-555 would increase that buffer zone from a half mile to a full mile. Here is the thing: the half mile that is there now is not enforced, so increasing the distance to a full nautical mile is lip service. It means absolutely nothing.

What I said in my speech was that Bill C-555 was a sham, a charade, an illusion, a nuisance bill to make it appear that the Conservative government was defending the seal hunt, to make it appear that the government was the champion of the seal hunt, when it so clearly was not. Under the Conservative government, we have seen the biggest collapse of seal markets in history.

Now, back to the drug-free prisons act. What is the correlation? What is the connection? It is that the drug-free prisons act is also a charade. This is déjà vu. Bill C-12 would have minimal impact on drugs in prison. The title is absolutely misleading.

The Conservative government is using legislation to create an opportunity to pander to its base, without presenting a real solution to the issue of drugs and gangs in our prisons. The Conservatives will tell their base that they passed the drug-free prisons act. Great—Conservative job done. Only the job is not done. It is more Conservative sham, charade, illusion and sleight of hand, just like the seal bill.

In fact, the government is making prisons less safe by cutting funding to prison programs such as substance abuse. The government is making prisons less safe by increasing the use of double-bunking that leads to overcrowding, which then leads to more violence. It is well known that a high percentage of inmates in our prisons who abuse drugs also suffer from mental illness. At the same time, the budget of Correctional Service Canada for core funding such as substance abuse has been cut. Make sense out of that.

The Conservative government has closed treatment centres for inmates dealing with serious mental illness, but we would have a drug-free prisons act. Problem solved; it is all good. It is a charade. A flashy title does not solve the problem. Prisons should be renamed crime schools, crime schools that are endorsed by a Conservative government that fails to address double-bunking and gangs, a Conservative government that fails to support rehabilitation and drug abuse or mental illness. The Conservative crime school in my riding is known as Her Majesty's Penitentiary on the shores of Quidi Vidi Lake in east end St. John's. Newfoundland and Labrador is the only province in Canada without a federal prison. Her Majesty's Penitentiary is a provincial institution that takes in federal inmates.

The Conservatives have long promised to help build a new penitentiary, but we are not holding our breath. If we did, we would be long dead. Her Majesty's Penitentiary boasts a block that was built in 1849, 100 years before Confederation, before Canada joined Newfoundland and Labrador, a prison that is 165 years of age. Imprisoning inmates there has been compared to taking people from the 21st century and putting them back into the 19th century.

The latest story on Her Majesty's Penitentiary is from earlier today, just today. According to a CBC story, three inmates of Her Majesty's Penitentiary were charged after assaulting another inmate over the weekend with a broom handle. The victim was treated in hospital and released, thankfully. The story quotes the head of the union representing correctional officers as saying that the weekend assault was the fifth violent incident at that facility since last summer, and some of these incidents have included riots and hostage taking.

The leader of the union representing correctional officers at Her Majesty's Penitentiary says that it has become a more violent place, with prisoners involved with drug and gang activity inside prison walls. I repeat, drug and gang activity inside prison walls. Would the drug-free prisons act change that? There is not a chance, not at Her Majesty's Penitentiary and not at federal prisons around this country. Conservatives are not addressing drug addictions in prisons or mental illness, or gangs, or overcrowding, or double-bunking, or self-harm—suicides, in other words. Conservative legislation, such on as mandatory minimums, is leading to an increase in prison populations at the same time that prisons are closing, or prisons that should be replaced are not being replaced.

I like the advice of the federal Correctional Investigator. The advice is this. Prisoners should be assessed at intake into a prison so that addiction problems are identified and there can be better access to rehabilitation programs. What a novel concept: treating problems as they are assessed. According to the 2011-12 report of the Office of the Correctional Investigator, almost two-thirds of offenders were under the influence of a drug when they committed the offences that led to their imprisonment. Four out of five offenders arrive at a federal institution with a past history of substance abuse. In the meantime, Correctional Service Canada devotes between 2% and 2.7% of its total operating budget on core correctional programs like substance abuse. Is that enough? No, it is not nearly enough. While New Democrats support the drug-free prisons act, is that enough? No, it is not enough.

If the Conservatives say different, and they will, it is just another charade, a sham, an illusion. It is the Conservative way.

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, many people in my riding of Kingston and the Islands would like to see drug-free prisons or at least prisons with less drug use, because they work in the prisons.

The Prime Minister has said that what we do not measure we cannot manage. Is there any provision in this legislation to provide funds to measure the effect of the bill, to measure a baseline for drug use and the change in drug use in prisons? Is there any provision in the bill to measure its effect?

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Mr. Speaker, there is no money in the bill to measure the extent of the problem or to assess the extent of the problem. There is also no money in the bill to treat the problem.

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Speaker, perhaps it is the late hour, but I thought I heard the member opposite say that he supported the bill. I do not know if that is correct or not. I would like the member to clarify that.

I heard a lot of criticism of the drug-free prisons bill. Would the member not agree that this is the first time this issue is being talked about and attacked and dealt with by doing something about the problem of drugs flowing freely in many prisons across this country?

Could the member please answer those two questions?

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I have struggled with this a bit. Certain bills have come before the House that I have agreed with, like the seal bill that I mentioned in my speech, like the offshore liability bill that was brought forward in the House a few months ago, and like the drug-free prisons bill. I do agree with them, but they do not go nearly far enough.

This particular legislation would not do anything to address the problem with drugs in our prisons. It would certainly not make them drug free, as the misleading title of the bill indicates.

The bills do not go nearly far enough.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for St. John's South—Mount Pearl for his speech today. He did a great job summarizing the position of those of us on this side of the House concerning Bill C-12.

At the beginning of his speech, he said that the title of Bill C-12 is incredibly misleading. It mentions “drug free prisons”, but that is not at all what this bill is about. The Parole Board of Canada already has this discretionary power. The bill changes absolutely nothing.

There are three federal prisons in my riding. Correctional officers have been concerned since the Conservatives came to power. Double bunking is becoming increasingly common in our prisons, and that is a safety issue for workers, who are watching these federal prisons become schools for crime.

What does my colleague think about the Conservative attitude? The Conservatives pretend to be tackling a problem but then they forget about rehabilitation and do not bother to implement programs that our correctional system so desperately needs.

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Mr. Speaker, as I said in my speech, what the bill amounts to is the Conservative government pandering to its base. If drug tests are already being used to determine eligibility for parole, this would make it official. It is really absolutely nothing new. The member makes a great point.

The real problems that I pointed out in my speech, like addictions and mental illness, are not being addressed. Program funding is actually being cut. Until we see prisoners being rehabilitated, we are going to see a revolving door in penitentiaries right across this country.

The problems have to be addressed. This legislation would not address those problems.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we have changed topics, but this is a sensitive issue as well. I am pleased to speak to Bill C-12, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, on behalf of the people of Sherbrooke. The short title of the bill is the Drug-Free Prisons Act. I am sure the members noticed how my tone changed as I read out the short title.

If only that were truly the case and this bill contained meaningful measures to tackle the issue of drugs in prisons. However, upon reading the bill, it is clear that the only part of the bill that talks about drug-free prisons is the title. Like my colleague from St. John's South—Mount Pearl said, it is just a flashy title that panders to a certain group of people that love the bill's title. In reality, this bill will do nothing to eliminate drugs in prisons.

I will explain in more detail why I say that there is no real substance behind that title.

We will support the bill at second reading. It is an interesting measure, even though it simply confirms that the parole board can take into account the fact that the offender tested positive in a urinalysis or refused to provide a urine sample for a drug test when deciding whether someone is eligible for parole. This is already a long-standing practice for parole assessments. The bill serves only to make it official by enshrining it in law.

I want to take a moment to say hello to everyone who works for Correctional Service Canada in Sherbrooke. I had the chance to visit their wonderful King Street office about a year and half ago. I believe they manage all the parole cases in the Sherbrooke and Eastern Townships areas.

Passionate people work hard every day to ensure that our communities are safe and that people released from the federal correctional system are well equipped to resume their lives as honest, law-abiding citizens. These people help former federal inmates. I would like to acknowledge them today and congratulate them for the work they do and will continue to do every day.

In one sense, Bill C-12 goes in the right direction even though it does not do a lot. To really address the drug problems in federal prisons, many things should have been done, including investing in the resources required for the rehabilitation of inmates. All this bill does is enshrine in law what is already being done in practice.

The NDP has always supported measures to make our prisons safer, whereas the Conservative government continues to ignore the recommendations of correctional staff and the Correctional Investigator of Canada, which would reduce violence, gang activity and drug use in our prisons.

Several measures were proposed and were discussed by experts and the people who work in this area every day. However, they were not included in the bill. Why? The Conservatives will have to tell us. I hope that one of my government colleagues will rise in the next few minutes to defend Bill C-12. As we know, the Conservatives have missed 145 speaking slots. That is their choice. They asked to extend sitting hours to midnight, but they do not seem interested in the debates in the House, except when they ask some questions now and again. Otherwise, parliamentary debates do not seem to be a priority for the government or for the members of the second opposition party.

I am pleased to participate in the debate, but I am sad that it is a one-sided one. The NDP is the only party participating. It is too bad that they claim to want to work, but all they do is listen. I hope that they will ask some questions. There seems to be a sudden interest from members on the other side of the House, so it will be interesting to debate the bill.

This bill addresses drug use in prison. The government is using this bill to kowtow to the wishes of its voter base, without proposing any real solutions to the drug and gang problems in prisons.

I said something similar in my speech on Bill C-2: the government is using Parliament for partisan purposes. This bill is called the Drug-Free Prisons Act, but it does nothing to eradicate drugs in prison, because all the bill does is confirm a practice already established by the Parole Board of Canada. It is easy for the Conservatives to write an email saying that they will eradicate drugs in prison and that people should support them by sending money. That is how the Conservatives work. That is what they did with Bill C-2 and that is what they are doing with Bill C-12. It is funny that they have not yet sent out an email. I subscribe to my adversaries' email lists to see what they have to say.

They sent out an email just a few hours after Bill C-2 came out. However, I do not remember seeing anything on Bill C-12. Perhaps the Conservatives will correct me and say that they use these emails for political purposes to raise funds. I hope that they will confirm that later on. It appears as though they are using the bills before Parliament to raise funds.

Unfortunately, as I mentioned in another speech, the legislator should not act in such a politically motivated way. The legislator should act responsibly instead of just reacting by way of a bill to the news of the day published in the newspapers. The legislator should conduct comprehensive studies before tackling such complex problems.

As I already said, several provisions could have been included in the bill, but they were not. It is a window dressing bill. On the other hand, let us hope that the work done in committee will allow us to improve the bill by adding some beneficial measures to it. It will be up to the members of the committee to do that. I am not a member of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, but I am sure that the Conservatives will act in good faith in order to improve the bill and try to turn it into something that will really eradicate drugs in prisons. It is certainly not the case with the present version of the bill, and I am not just making that up tonight.

Various experts in the field have said so. They recognize that, in the end, the title is nice, but the practice was in fact already in place. The bill just confirms it by making it a little clearer and more precise than in the current law.

It will be a pleasure for me to debate the issue with my colleagues across the way.

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I was interested in what the member opposite had to say because what I am hearing tonight over and over again from opposition is that there is no money behind the initiative to eradicate drugs from prisons. I was just wondering if the member realized that in actual fact the government has invested $122 million over five years to increase drug interdiction efforts. Those efforts include drug detector dogs, security intelligence, and perimeter security within the prisons.

As well, is the member opposite aware that the Safe Streets and Communities Act introduced two-year mandatory minimum penalties for trafficking drugs in the penitentiary or on penitentiary grounds? That is something that is definitely a deterrent to those in the prisons.

Also, I wonder if the member is aware that prevention and treatment initiatives within the prisons are provided under the government too. Generally CSC spends between 2% and 5% of its total operating budget on core correctional programs, including substance abuse programs. I am wondering if the member opposite is aware of this.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would really like to thank my colleague for her excellent question.

I am indeed aware of the $122 million that the Conservatives have spent since 2008 to acquire tools and technologies to prevent drugs from entering prisons. Unfortunately, none of that has reduced drug use in prisons. Yes, the government has spent $122 million since 2008, but to no avail.

A 2012 study by the Department of Public Safety confirms that having drug-free prisons is not a realistic goal. Among the solutions it mentioned was the safer communities bill of two years ago. That is all well and good, but according to our numbers, there has been no reduction in drug use or trafficking in federal prisons. Unfortunately, these measures are not working.

I am looking forward to seeing numbers that might improve thanks to real measures that will help people struggling with drug addiction. I am eager to see other numbers, but it seems unlikely that this bill will change anything in prisons.

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my colleague's speech. I listened very carefully, in fact. It would be inaccurate to suggest otherwise.

I would like to ask him if, instead of Bill C-12, it would have been more useful to provide Correctional Service Canada with resources to measure how effective existing programs are at fighting drug use in our prisons.

It is something that was suggested, I believe, by the Correctional Investigator, something that is not sufficiently in place presently. I wonder if my colleague would care to comment.

I think that approach would have been more useful than the measures in the current bill. As my colleague mentioned in his speech, drug tests are currently in place now and are used by the system.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question.

Indeed, a number of measures could have been taken to improve the situation in our prisons. For example, Correctional Service Canada could develop an intake assessment process to accurately measure the level of drug use by inmates, and then provide adequate programs for offenders in need. That might be a solution.

Without treatment for drug use or education and reintegration programs that will help them when they are released, offenders unfortunately risk going back to a life of crime and, ultimately, preying on new victims.

The experts floated some interesting ideas. Unfortunately, none were retained in this bill. We hope that the work done in committee will result in improvements, and amendments, to the legislation. The onus will be on the committee to do this work a little further along in the process of consideration of this bill. Our party nevertheless intends to support the bill, with the hope that it will be made better.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for the resounding applause and the very warm welcome. That was very kind of them. As the cow said to the farmer every morning, “Thanks for the warm hand”.

I want to speak to Bill C-12, and I want to talk about this in the context brought up earlier by my colleague from St. John's South—Mount Pearl and talk about drugs in prisons.

The structure of the drug-free prisons act dictates that this is, as the expression goes, on target but wide of the mark. It is on target in the sense that it could potentially clean up a situation we have when it comes to people getting out of the system. However, when it comes to freeing the prisons of drugs, it is wide of the mark.

I believe that in this case, and on this particular bill, it is a little too narrow in scope to deal with a much broader issue, which is drugs in prisons, and not just federal prisons but provincial ones as well. The proliferation of drugs in prisons still exists, as studies have shown.

This particular bill, as I mentioned, is fairly narrow. I want to speak to the contents of the bill, but first I want to say that with a title such as this, it is a little disappointing that we did not have broader consultation and the broader discussion that would have followed if we had started talking about elicit drugs penetrating our prison system across this country, in particular in the federal prisons.

The summary of Bill C-12 states:

This enactment amends the Corrections and Conditional Release Act to require the Parole Board of Canada (or a provincial parole board, if applicable) to cancel parole granted to an offender if, before the offender’s release, the offender tests positive in a urinalysis, or fails or refuses to provide a urine sample, and the Board considers that the criteria for granting parole are no longer met. It also amends that Act to clarify that any conditions set by a releasing authority on an offender’s parole, statutory release or unescorted temporary absence may include conditions regarding the offender’s use of drugs or alcohol, including in cases when that use has been identified as a risk factor in the offender’s criminal behaviour. It is about transitioning from within prison to outside and checking to see if that person is abusing particular drugs when in the system.

The title of the bill, as I mentioned earlier, is the unfortunate part, because we could have had the opportunity to partake in a much broader discussion to hopefully achieve some grander solutions brought forward by people who have been involved in the prison system: former prisoners, counsellors, therapists, prison guards of course, wardens, and officials with Correctional Service Canada. The title of the bill focuses very prescriptively on one part and one area, which I will talk about through the clauses in just a few moments.

In his 2011-12 annual report, the Correctional Investigator made the following observation with respect to the prevalence of drugs within our federal prisons. Here is what he had to say:

A "zerotolerance" stance to drugs in prison, while perhaps serving as an effective deterrent posted at the entry point of a penitentiary, simply does not accord with the facts of crime and addiction in Canada or elsewhere in the world.

Bill C-12 targets individual offenders by imposing requirements for the provision of urinalysis tests subsequent to having obtained parole, statutory release, or unescorted temporary absences. The legislation does not make any reference to or address the problem of offenders with drug and alcohol addiction problems or in any manner address the access to and prevalence of drugs within the federal institutions, which I mentioned earlier.

Currently under the act, where staff or authorities have grounds to suspect a violation by an offender with respect to drug use on parole, work release, temporary absence, or statutory release, they can order a urinalysis test. These tests are conducted to ensure that the conditions upon which release was granted are respected and adhered to.

Within institutions such tests can be ordered on a random and collective basis, unless individuals are, again, suspected on reasonable grounds of the use of illegal substances.

Bill C-12 does little to contribute to what the Office of the Correctional Investigator called for in his most recent annual report. He said, “I note that a comprehensive and integrated drug strategy should include a balance of measures—prevention, treatment, harm reduction and interdiction.”

There we find the crux of the issue, the harm reduction that we talked about in the last debate regarding injection sites. We go back to this aspect again because harm reduction is a policy that we should adhere to simply for that reason: the health of individuals who find themselves addicted to drugs and who in many cases are unable to find the help to wean themselves from a particular abuse.

The prison system does not address this issue through legislation. It addresses it through several reports, but it turns out that we are not addressing it correctly through legislation, which is the outcome we would like to achieve.

Bill C-12 has taken an exclusively punitive course of action, targeting individuals and offenders who have been granted parole and those who have been granted statutory release or unescorted temporary absences. They are transitioning out from the prison. The tests take place, and if the results are positive, then of course we have an issue.

The requirement is that prior to release, the offender who has been approved for release, in the case of parole, must provide that urine sample. There is nothing in the legislation related to what appears to be the wider systemic problem. We have problems across many provinces in many of these prisons, as demonstrated by some of the examples cited earlier by my colleague from St. John's South—Mount Pearl regarding the prison in St. John's.

Bill C-12 is a measure that at best can be said to address the symptoms of a serious correctional service problem without contributing anything of substance to resolving that problem, the overall problem that I talked about. We may be in agreement as to the specific transition of a person who has been released from prison, let us say in the case of parole. The testing involved in that is certainly worth discussing, which is why I personally would favour sending this bill to committee to find out about that. However, to call this part of a larger discussion about drugs in prison is really deceiving, because we are not addressing how to clean up prisons and get people off drugs through measures such as treatment or harm reduction in addition to these greater policing efforts.

The legislation will target those who have been granted parole or statutory release. According to the 2011-12 annual report, the Correctional Investigator says that almost two-thirds of the current prison population of approximately 15,000 federal offenders, meaning an estimated 10,000 offenders, were under the influence of alcohol or other intoxicants when they committed the offence that led to their incarceration. That is from the very beginning of committing the crime, so we can see that for many of these offenders, the base of the problem started before entering prison.

What is more disturbing is that a very high percentage of the offender population that abuses drugs is also concurrently struggling with mental illness. That is another factor for people seeking treatment that we have to address within our prison system. Again I return to the term “harm reduction”, a term that we pay less attention to these days. Again I refer to the model of harm reduction from 2003, the safe injection site in Vancouver that was mentioned in a prior debate.

The issue of drug prevalence and use within federal institutions is a complex problem. The Correctional Investigator has acknowledged that “the problem of intoxicants and contraband substances in prison is difficult to measure and monitor.” That too deserves a conversation. It deserves debate and witness testimony. Probably only the tangents and margins would be addressed in witness testimony, but this aspect really requires a broader conversation. Unfortunately, the bill is far too restrictive and prescriptive in what it wants to do.

In August 2008, the Minister of Public Safety announced a five-year, $120-million investment in Correctional Service Canada's anti-drug strategy. The investment contained the following four components: expansion of drug-detector dog teams, hiring of new security intelligence officers, new detection equipment, and more stringent search standards. The results of these measures, according to the Correctional Investigator, appear mixed and somewhat distorted.

For example, while there has been an increase in the amount of drugs seized, the scope of the problem is difficult to determine. With respect to the results of the random urine tests administered, there has been, on the basis of these results, a decline within institutions. However, it goes on to say that:

after correcting for the removal of prescription drugs, the rate of positive random urinalysis has remained relatively unchanged over the past decade despite increased interdiction efforts.

Don Head, Commissioner of Correctional Service Canada, confirmed this conclusion in testimony before the public safety committee in December 1, 2011.

Correctional Service Canada's current anti-drug strategy, according to the Correctional Investigator, lacks three key elements.

First is an integrated link between interdiction and prevention, treatment, and harm reduction. Second is a comprehensive public reporting mechanism. Third is a well-defined evaluation, review, and performance plan to measure the effectiveness of these investments to be made, ways to curtail to drug use within prisons. Technology plays a large role in that, but what needs to play a much larger role, of course, would be the aspect of prevention, treatment, and harm reduction.

What might have been of value prior to Bill C-12 is that these elements would have been addressed by CSC to determine the efficacy of the programs currently in place and on which Bill C-12 is trying to build. Again, it only builds on a very small part of some of the recommendations that were put forward in many reports.

Given the reality of the prison population with respect to a history of substance abuse prior to entering correction facilities, the scale of which is massive, according to the Commissioner of Corrections, and given the fact that the CSC's substance abuse programming has been declining, the reality is that many of those eligible for parole, temporary release, or statutory release may well be ill-equipped to achieve a substance-free test result, the result being little or no treatment and a definite longer period of incarceration.

Without treatment and harm reduction, this could present a problem when it comes to the administration of Bill C-12 and what Bill C-12 hopes to do. This is something to discuss in committee, and I certainly look forward to that.

With respect to the provisions of the bill, and these are the specific provisions of the bill, let us take a look at clause 2. It is a new provision, restriction requiring the provision of a urinalysis, which would be imposed prior to release but after an offender has been granted parole.

Even though the PBC has satisfied itself that an offender meets all the criteria it has imposed and required, the offender would have to meet an additional requirement outside the normal parole process.

Also, the stipulation would affect all those seeking parole regardless of any cause. No offender being granted parole need be informed of any justification, nor can any offender granted parole refuse.

It appears cynical, true, but by imposing this requirement after parole has been granted, the government appears to have changed sections 56 and 57 of the act, which require officials to provide to the offender the basis upon which that demand for a test is based.

Interestingly, less than 23% of full paroles sought are granted. Corrections and Conditional Release Statistical Overview 2012 cites that as a statistic. Again, that is 23% of full paroles sought are granted.

Clause 3 would amend section 124. It is a new paragraph after 124(3). If the PBC is informed on matters contained in Clause 2 with respect to a positive urine test or refusal of the offender to provide a urine sample, the board is empowered to refuse to grant parole on that basis.

Not only is it the positive test, but it is also the right to refuse that test.

Clause 4 would amend subsection 133(3) of the act, which currently states:

The releasing authority may impose any conditions on the parole, statutory release or unescorted temporary absence of an offender that it considers reasonable and necessary in order to protect society and to facilitate the successful reintegration into society of the offender.

The subsection would be amended to the following:

The releasing authority may impose any conditions on the parole, statutory release or unescorted temporary absence of an offender that it considers reasonable and necessary in order to protect society and to facilitate the offender’s successful reintegration into society. For greater certainty, the conditions may include any condition regarding the offender’s use of drugs or alcohol, including in cases when that use has been identified as a risk factor in the offender’s criminal behaviour.

It would appear on a literal reading that the addition contained in clause 4 is redundant to the existing section. It would add rhetorical flourish to the powers already granted to releasing authorities to any condition deemed necessary. There seems to be redundancy here in this bill, which is one of the other things that we need to discuss.

We have seen this on many occasions in bills in the past, where the government is out there and in an attempt to look and act tough on crime, it puts forward penalty measures from the authorities in legislation that really already existed. It is trying to impose what is seemingly a new way of getting tough on crime but, in fact, already existed in many cases.

Clause 5 would amend subsection 156(1) of the act by adding to the existing section, mandating that the Governor in Council or cabinet make regulations applicable to this part requiring regulations, including:

...defining terms that are to be defined in the regulations for the purposes of this Part...

Let us talk about the key stakeholders. The Office of the Correctional Investigator has been highly skeptical about this kind of initiative, which would rest on punitive initiatives without setting those efforts within the context of increased treatment efforts.

If there is one thing that I would like to bring up in this debate, and I know that it has been brought up before, it is the issue of treatment and harm reduction within an environment where the proliferation of drugs is rampant. Yes, we agree that there should be technical measures and technological aspects of looking at prisons and guarding them so that the entrance of drugs into these institutions is cut down. There is no doubt about that.

However, let us be honest with ourselves. There is a reason why they are going in. That is because of the addictions of the inmates. People who are addicted are in there for the wrong reasons. They are in there for committing crimes, and they continue to commit crimes in this case. At the same time, every element of crime requires a treatment and requires harm reduction when necessary in order to curb that type of behaviour in the future.

This is not a way of saying, in many cases, that we want to go easy on criminals. We do not want that. However, if we want to solve the problem of the crime itself, we have to address the whole issue and not just a part of it. If we want to pretend to be tough on crime and only that, then we are missing the point. The point is that people who are victims of crime do need treatment and justice. The people who commit these crimes do need to be punished but, at the same time, treatment must be available to curb this behaviour in the future.

All modern democracies, and any democracy that puts itself centre stage of the right things to do in justice and justice legislation, will tell us that it must go hand in hand with treatment and harm reduction. What this bill would not do is address that in a more holistic way. That is what I would call, as other people have called it, an opportunity missed.

At the same time, for the merits of this particular bill and the transition from a prisoner to outside through, for example, paroles or temporary absences, we should address testing them for drugs upon release.

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened closely to my Liberal colleague's remarks.

We all know full well that this bill has a misleading title, and that it will do nothing, in reality, to truly eradicate drugs from our federal prisons. Moreover, Correctional Service Canada said that this was a pipe dream, and that what the Conservatives are seeking to do is unrealistic. I know that when the Liberals were in power, not much was achieved either.

Now, I would like to ask my colleague a sincere question, since we in the NDP believe in a correctional system that provides effective rehabilitation programs, continuing education and drug treatment programs, as well as support for programs that promote the reintegration of inmates and ultimately help make our communities safer.

Does my colleague agree with the NDP's point of view when it comes to public safety, reducing recidivism rates and preventing new crimes from being committed?

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, not just the hon. member's party, but I think many parties in this country would agree. I would not single out any party, but the ideology is such that we have to have both coming together, there is no doubt, but I think what we are doing here is living up to a standard that has been set in many jurisdictions.

As a matter of fact, in her question she talked about the treatment facilities and how we need to do this and need to go hand in hand with all these institutions. Of several jurisdictions in the United States that pursued tougher penalties, many of them would now agree that tougher penalties were one thing, but because they put less importance on the treatment, it did not serve in their favour.

Many of the most right-wing ideologues even agree with that as well. I do not mean that as a disparaging remark against my colleagues across the way; I meant other right-wing ideologues.

The point is that the evidence is clearly there among all the practitioners. People who deal with prisoners on a daily basis and deal with drug addictions agree on what she pointed out about the treatment that needs to take place, not only on the outside but on the inside of these institutions and before they even get to prisons, because they are a high number. There are 15,000 inmates, and 10,000 of them, according to a report here, may have been exposed to that type of drug use.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor for his enlightening remarks.

We have learned over the last number of years that the government likes to characterize anyone who does not agree with its crime legislation as being soft on crime while it is tough on crime.

We have learned from our American friends and our British friends that in fact the dichotomy is not tough or soft on crime; it is smart or dumb on crime. Right now the Conservatives are being dumb on crime. The remarks and the suggestions by the opposition and the third party Liberals are being smart on crime.

I am wondering if my friend might talk to us a bit about why they are being dumb, in this legislation, as opposed to being smart, having had the opportunity to be so.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I am always reticent to diminish the intellectual capacity of others but, nonetheless, this gives me a golden opportunity do just that.

What the Conservatives are doing, in the case of much of the legislation they put forward, is, instead of chasing the solution, they are chasing a headline. Whenever it comes to legislation, instead of starting a conversation, the sole attempt is to start an argument. That is unfortunate because they see the end in sight without testing the way to get there, in other words, to find the people who are experts.

That is another component I did not mention enough in my speech. I am glad the member for Guelph was smart enough to realize I needed to make that point.

The point is that the evidence is there and the government chooses to ignore it because there is so much evidence compiled that is not contained within legislation. Time and time again, evidence-based solutions within legislation have suffered greatly over the past little while.

There is nothing wrong with reading the data that is put in front of us. There is nothing wrong with interpreting it. We pay millions of dollars for people to interpret the data that we receive in order to make this into decent legislation, yet the government chooses not to do that in many cases.

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Mr. Speaker, the member mentioned Her Majesty's Penitentiary, the provincial prison in Newfoundland and Labrador. Newfoundland and Labrador does not have a federal prison. It has a provincial medium security prison. It is 165 years old. It needs to be replaced. There are problems when it comes to drug abuse, riots and mental illness. The rehabilitation that is needed at Her Majesty's Penitentiary is not happening.

What will this so-called drug-free prisons act, although it will not make prisons drug free, do to alleviate problems at prisons such as Her Majesty's Penitentiary and federal prisons across the country?

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, we could probably spend a whole day discussing the problems with that penitentiary, a provincial one, lacking a federal one in Newfoundland and Labrador, which in itself is a contentious issue that I will not get into it.

We missed that golden opportunity to talk about how this would be dealt with over the next little while. We find ourselves in a situation where we have had a fairly good debate here. We have talked about how the statistics show a proliferation of drugs in the prison system across the country and how we can curtail that.

I only cited one report, which was the correctional report. It states that the idea of treatment has been sorely overlooked, to the point where we all need to get on board. This is just in this legislature. Imagine the evidence that could be brought forward if we had public hearings based upon the amount of drugs in the system and profiled the people currently in prison who are addicted.

It is one thing to talk about the entrance of illicit drugs into the system but, again, they are there because the demand remains fairly high.

We can punish them and give them an extra add-on to their sentence, but that will not stop this. What will stop this is the right treatment, which is happening in jurisdictions such as in the southern United States.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to what my colleague had to say a moment ago regarding the InSite project.

When reading Bill C-12—which seeks to address the drug problem in our prisons—I cannot help but compare it to Bill C-2, which was the subject of discussion just a few short hours ago.

I would like to ask my honourable colleague from the third party what he thinks about the war that the Conservatives are currently waging against all things drug-related. Does he think that their approach is working, or that they are way off track at this point?

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, first, I want to thank my colleagues for the sudden interest in what I was talking about. It is very kind of them.

I want to talk about the member's question, which pertains to the war on drugs. There is a way to do it and a dumb way to do it, which is to ignore the treatment part of it and just go after the traffickers and the people who buy the drugs. Yes, the penalties have to be stiff to act as a deterrent, and there is nothing wrong with that, but the treatment part of it is completely ignored.

The member brought up Bill C-2 earlier. Evidence proves that what happens at an injection site actually works. It is improving the situation. It is not perfect, but it certainly is working. With the reduction of 35% in drug abuse in that area, it shows that treatment for harm reduction has positive effects. Yet, it seems we overlook this because we want to go after that headline to be tough on crime, which is unfortunate.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleagues, the House Leader of the Official Opposition and the Minister of Foreign Affairs. I am very appreciative of the fact that we are discussing Bill C-12 today. I appreciate how enthusiastic the members are about my speech, at 11:45 p.m.

To begin, I would like to say that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Vaudreuil-Soulanges. I am sure that his speech will be excellent.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

Order. From now on the speeches will be 10 minutes, and the question and comment period will be five minutes.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I hope that the hon. member for Vaudreuil-Soulanges will understand and that he will be able to give his excellent speech after mine, whenever he sees fit.

It is truly an honour for me, as the official opposition's deputy public safety critic, to speak to Bill C-12, and there are many reasons for that.

To begin, I would like to mention that members on this side of the House will be supporting Bill C-12 at second reading. I think it will be interesting to see what happens in committee. I am looking forward to inviting various witnesses to come and discuss the different provisions included in Bill C-12.

We can summarize this bill quite easily. It is designed to add a provision to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act confirming that, when deciding whether someone is eligible for parole, the parole board may take into account the fact that the offender tested positive in a urinalysis or refused to provide a urine sample for a drug test. The parole board already uses this practice, which we support.

The board already takes into account the results of drug screening tests when it holds hearings and determines the inmates' eligibility for parole. That is why I think a title like “drug-free prisons act” is a little too much. Indeed, nothing in Bill C-12 will make prisons drug-free because the provisions for that are simply not there.

Correctional Service Canada has serious problems. In my riding, Alfred-Pellan, there were until very recently three federal correctional facilities on the property of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul. There was Leclerc Institution—which was closed as a result of what I thought was a very unfair decision by the Conservative government—and we still have Montée Saint-François Institution and the Federal Training Centre.

Since my election, I often visit the correctional facilities in my riding in order to understand the reality of the correctional system, as well as what the staff has to go through every day in that system. I can tell you that their work is not easy.

I invite my colleagues in the House to visit the federal correctional facilities in or near their ridings to see and understand the reality of our correctional workers.

Right now, there is a lot going on. They are very worried about the decisions made by the Conservatives regarding the correctional system. I will mention a few. First, double-bunking in our prisons is a glaring problem. It is difficult for correctional officers to do their job properly. Many do not have the means to their job properly. It is harder for them to ensure activities within our institutions are properly carried, and this is very unfortunate. Their health and safety are compromised because of these decisions. We see more and more double-bunking, and even triple-bunking, which is very unfortunate. Correctional staff also condemns this situation.

They also condemn another measure that goes directly against Bill C-12, namely the cuts to Correctional Service Canada. Over the past two years, the budget has been reduced by 10%. This affects many programs within Correctional Service Canada. That is also being condemned by the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers, because the officers see the inmates' reality daily in these facilities. They see the deteriorating quality of life, and they see that these individuals will be reintegrated into society without having the necessary tools to avoid reoffending. This shows the importance of our programs.

Many programs deal with the detoxification of inmates. Let us not forget that two thirds of people who commit a crime are under the influence of alcohol or drugs. It is estimated that four out of five inmates in our prisons have substance abuse problems. This is a very serious problem that needs to be addressed.

I heard Conservative members ask questions about the $122 million investment in technology to detect drugs inside our prisons.

Unfortunately, this investment did not work. It is very sad. It is also sad to see the other side tell us there should be zero drugs in our prisons. In a perfect world, it would be great if we did not have any drugs in prisons, and if everyone was clean.

However, it is impossible and I am not the only saying that. Correctional officer Howard Sapers, also says it. So does the John Howard Society. Moreover, the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers, which works really hard, also tells us it is impossible and we must implement measures to tackle this issue.

I reiterate my support to the hard-working personnel in prisons. We on this side can say that we support them every day in their work. Like them, we want to propose real solutions, so that inmates do not return to society without having had access to rehabilitation and anti-drug programs.

In our prisons, addiction is also related to mental health, unfortunately. It is sad to say, but we have to face reality. The government has not only made cuts to addictions programs, but also to programs that address mental health problems. Both are closely linked. We must pay attention to that. In recent months, the case of Ashley Smith has resurfaced and shown that people working in our prisons are not equipped to deal with serious problems such as mental health problems.

I hope we can have a productive discussion in committee about the best solution for dealing with addiction problems full force. My colleague from Sherbrooke mentioned this in his speech when we began talking about this. It is a question of doing intake assessments, as correctional investigator Howard Sapers is calling for, and ensuring that inmates have access to all the necessary programs for overcoming their drug or alcohol problems.

Keeping our communities safe is important to all members in the House, as is reducing recidivism rates as much as possible and giving people the tools they need to reintegrate into society. Let us not bury our heads in the sand and suggest that we can round all these people up somewhere, lock the door and throw away the key. They will eventually be released. If we want them to become good citizens and if we want fewer victims in Canada, we must give people the right tools.

The numbers back me up. When people have the tools they need and reintegration works, recidivism rates drop. We need to ensure that rehabilitation is done properly, and we need to come up with some real solutions. We are sick and tired of hearing that mandatory minimums will miraculously turn everything around. Mandatory minimum sentences have nothing to do with the issue at hand.

In closing, I would like to say that we intend to support the bill. I hope we will have the opportunity to discuss it further and make some real changes to it to tackle the issue of drug use in our prisons. I would be happy to keep discussing the issue if anyone has any questions.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the member a question about something that is of interest to me.

It is odd because there is a provincial prison in my riding and it is the Orsainville prison that is in the news these days. When I was a young girl, my parents and our neighbours called it “the sieve”. Unfortunately, not much has changed.

We know that a lot of drug traffickers are sent to prison. They end up in prison. When it comes to drugs, there is no prison system that almost totally prevents contact with the outside world. A lot of drugs find their way into prison.

Can my colleague talk more about the fact that the Conservatives are increasing prison time, depriving individuals of their rights and increasing minimum sentences when we know that this does not address any of the problems?

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles goes to the heart of the problem. The Conservatives would have us believe they are tough on crime, but their war on drugs is not working at all.

In recent weeks, my colleague witnessed the unrest that followed the events at Orsainville. This is another illustration of the Conservatives' laissez-faire attitude. They should have acted a long time ago on the issue of flying zones above provincial institutions. This is unfortunate.

As for federal prisons, several correctional officers told me that since the new provisions were passed, our prisons are increasingly overcrowded, double-bunking is frequent, and budgets and personnel have been cut. This is turning our prisons into schools for crime.

It is unacceptable. It complicates the rehabilitation of inmates, at a time when we seek to make our communities safer.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to share with my colleague and Conservative members the comments of Michael Parkinson, the community engagement coordinator for the Waterloo Region Crime Prevention Council. I mentioned in an earlier debate the task force that it came up with.

Parkinson starts by saying that, “The United Nations estimates that substance abuse costs society about $700 billion globally every year”. He goes on to say that, “...incarceration...can't fully deal with the issue of substance related crime”. He elaborates by saying that as a government, “It costs a minimum of $80,000 to incarcerate someone in Canada”. He goes on to ask, “...are they likely to get any treatment for the addiction? Not likely”. He goes on to say that, “...there are no prison systems internationally that have eradicated drugs internally”.

This task force looked at the actual prison systems.

He then comments about the criminals, “And then they’re popped back out into society and the root cause of the criminal behaviour has yet to be addressed”.

I would like the Conservatives on this side, many of whom represent the Waterloo region, to listen and collaborate with the stakeholders in their regions who are telling them their approach is wrong.

We are going to support this legislation at second reading but we believe that the scope of it is very narrow. It is trying to address a wicked problem with insufficient solutions.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Vaudreuil—Soulanges made a very relevant comment, especially since once you read Bill C-12 you can see that it has nothing to do with its title, which would have us believe that it is making our prisons drug free. No prisoner or would-be criminal is going to refrain from using drugs for fear of losing their freedom. That is not how it works.

The government is sticking its head in the sand and is giving us this dog and pony show with something that already exists.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I note the enthusiasm of all members for my presentation on Bill C-12, but I am not sure that will be warranted when I finish.

I will say in advance on behalf of the official opposition that I will be supporting Bill C-12 at second reading.

The bill has a somewhat grandiose title, “The drug-free prisons act”, which, as I hope to explain in my remarks, is a long way from what the bill would accomplish.

The bill essentially confirms what is already in place. The National Parole Board, as one of the conditions for the exercise of its members' discretion, already takes into account positive results of urinalysis or a refusal to take urine tests in making its decision for parole eligibility. Despite its title, the bill would do very little, if anything, to eliminate drugs from federal prisons in Canada. That would require an investment of money and the government following some of the reports over the years by the Correctional Investigator and the federal prisons ombudsman, as I will explain. However, none of that is in the bill.

The bill simply confirms what is already in place. Members do not have to take my word for it. I went online and looked at the National Parole Board document entitled, “Decision-Making Policy Manual for Board Members”. Section 8, “Assessing Criminal, Social and Conditional Release History”, reads:

Information considered when assessing criminal, social and conditional release history includes:

...e. any documented occurrence of drug use, positive urinalysis results or failures or refusals to provide a sample while on conditional release;

The bill would do nothing but pander to the Conservative base, I suppose, and would let them have a few more talking points. However, the crisis in our prisons, which involves substance abuse, rampant gang activity and recruitment, among other things, could be addressed far more effectively by some of the things that others have pointed out and that I hope to describe today. In short, resources for rehabilitation are wanting. I can explain that just by looking at the budget of the organization and how the Conservatives have cut the budget over the years.

The Correctional Service of Canada has admitted that $122 million of Conservative spending on interdiction tools and technology to stop drugs from entering prisons since 2008 has not led to any reduction of drug use in our prisons—zero. Talk about $122 million for naught. How come nothing has been done in light of that shocking statistic? Why have there been no policy reviews or the like? A very high percentage of our offender population abuses drugs.

I have in front of me a report by Michael Crowley who is with the National Parole Board, Ontario Region. He provides a perspective on the topic at issue. His article, “Substance Abuse—The Perspective of a National Parole Board Member”, starts thus:

It is clear that alcohol and other drug problems constitute a major problem for both incarcerated offenders and those who are on some form of conditional release. It is estimated that about 70% of offenders have substance abuse problems that are in need of treatment, and that more than 50% of their crimes are linked with substance use and abuse.

Those figures are shocking. Has the government invested in rehabilitation programs in the prison population to address that?

The answer, sadly, is no. What the Conservatives have done is to increase the prisoner population through their famous mandatory minimum sentences. The population in prisons is exploding in Canada, yet the crime rate has gone down consistently.

Mental health is part of the problem. There has been a failure to address the growing issue of prisoners with addiction, as I have mentioned, as well as those with mental illness. The figure shocks me, but in 2011 some 45% of male offenders and 69% of female offenders received a mental health care intervention.

Despite this staggering figure, the Conservative government has still not even asked for a report from the Correctional Service of Canada on the implementation of recommendations to improve handling of prisoners with mental illness.

How about Ashley Smith, who, members will recall, was a 19-year-old from New Brunswick who died while in custody? A coroner's report said that the CSC remains “ill-equipped” to manage female offenders who chronically injure themselves. What has been done? To my knowledge, nothing since the coroner's report. There has been no response from the government on that. If it is truly interested in dealing with the crisis in the prison population and the number of people with substance abuse problems who continue to find drugs while there, the Conservative government would not pass an irrelevant bill that simply confirms the status quo; it would actually address the problem along the lines of what the Correctional Investigator, the CSC itself, and the prisoner ombudsman have all been saying for years.

An investment in rehabilitative programming would really start to address the problem of violence in prisons and so forth, and it would address the problem of victims when people are released into the community without the tools and then, still with mental illness problems and still with substance abuse, and go on and reoffend. That is where we could actually make a difference.

The problem of double-bunking has been brought up over and over again, and very little has been done to address that problem. Instead, we talk about “zero tolerance” for drugs, as if saying those words will somehow make it so. It certainly is not an effective policy. It does nothing to address the facts of crime and addiction that I have been trying to address in my remarks. Harm reduction measures within a public health and treatment orientation would be far more promising. That is what the Correctional Investigator said in his annual report of 2011-2012 at page 17. Those are recommendations by those who actually know whereof they speak.

The wait-list for substance abuse programming, for example, in our prisons is shocking. According to the CSC data warehouse, the number of offenders wait-listed to attend substance abuse programming as of a year ago, as of November 13, 2013, which does not even include the Pacific and Atlantic regions, is almost 2,000. It is estimated there are probably about 2,400 now.

According to the report of the Office of the Correction Investigator, close to two-thirds of offenders were under the influence of some intoxicant when they committed the offence that led to their incarceration, and four out of five offenders arrive at a federal institution with a past history of substance abuse. What has been done? The Conservatives, of course, have cut the budget for substance abuse programming. According to the Office of the Correctional Investigator, the CSC budget for substance abuse programming fell from $11 million in 2008-09 to $9 million in 2010-11, at the same time as the prisoner population was increased.

The Globe and Mail has done excellent service on another issue in drawing the problem of solitary confinement to Canadians' attention. I was not aware of this, but Canada seems to be leading the way in solitary confinement. Even the United States, with its practices in this area, has decreased the number of people and the length of time in solitary confinement.

The Globe and Mail told the story this weekend of Edward Christopher Snowshoe of Fort McPherson, who suffered from mental health issues. He spent three years in a maximum security prison in Edmonton and tried suicide four times. He was 24 when he hanged himself in a two- by three-metre isolation cell in 2010. He had spent 162 consecutive days in solitary confinement.

This man had mental health issues, yet nothing was done. Putting him in solitary confinement, which The Globe and Mail refers to as apparently a prison management system, was all that was done. Howard Sapers, who was the ombudsman for federal prisons, has been extraordinarily critical of this agency and how it deals with mental health issues.

Are members aware that the suicide rate in the federal prison population is seven times that of the Canadian population, and that there is no cap on solitary confinement? The courts have said there should be a 60-day cap.

There is no response to the Ashley Smith episode. The bill, in summary, will do nothing to address these deficiencies. It is simply pandering to the Conservative base for absolutely no benefit.

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I noted with interest the issue of solitary confinement. I am sure we are all aware of the extraordinary psychological damage this does to prisoners, who are expected to be returned not just to the general prison population but to society at some point.

I was wondering if the member could tell us more about his concerns over a prison system that seems more intent on punishment than on reform and more intent on looking strong than on reforming and rehabilitating. It is a prison system that puts prisoners in harm's way, especially in light of the suicide figures that were quoted.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague from Trinity—Spadina on this issue of solitary confinement. If the government really wanted to do something about what is happening in our prison population, it could join with Mr. Howard Sapers, the ombudsman for federal prisoners, and do something.

I was shocked to discover that not only do seven times as many people commit suicide in prison than in the general population, but also that rather than having a rehabilitation system, which is what the rhetoric of the CSC would have us believe exists, we have what The Globe and Mail, in its editorial of December 5, refers to as the “flagrant overuse of solitary confinement – a punitive measure so counter-productive that even the incarceration-crazy United States is putting an end to it – risks undermining the good work the CSC does.” It needs the budget and the tools to address this crisis. It needs to deal with intake, substance abuse, and mental illness. None of that seems to be happening in this bill whatsoever.

[Tyrone Benskin, NDP, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if my hon. colleague can give his opinion on the link between acts like solitary confinement and the use of drugs in terms of our better understanding as we move along. Drugs are not always a choice but rather a way in which people hide from whatever pain they are suffering. In the case of people who are going through solitary confinement, how does this help them find a way off of drugs?

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his insight. I honestly think that solitary confinement contributes nothing. It is unethical to use it simply as a management tool for overcrowded prisons. A causal link needs to be shown that putting people into solitary confinement to address problems of mental health or substance abuse would make a difference, but there is no such evidence. I have with me reports written for the Canadian Journal of Public Health by Perry Kendall, who is the former head of public health for the Province of British Columbia, which suggest that there is no such evidence.

In other words, these people come in lonely, and two-thirds of them are under the influence of a drug or intoxicant. Most of whom are confined in the prison population, and their behaviour is not changed while they are in prison. It appears that putting them in solitary confinement only exacerbates the problem and does nothing to treat the prisoner. If we are serious about rehabilitation, we should see that solitary confinement is only a management tool and one that we are using far more than our colleagues in other parts of the modern civilized world.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I too was troubled by the article in The Globe and Mail about Edward Snowshoe. In many ways we could look at putting mentally ill people in solitary confinement as torture, and by doing so we are engaging in an act that is reprehensible and should not be part of a civilized society. What does my colleague think about that?

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the compassion of my colleague from the Northwest Territories for people like Mr. Snowshoe is well known.

The answer to the question is that it does very little. When The Globe and Mail reached out to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness on this issue, he was not available. However, an email response stated that the government's tough-on-crime agenda amounts to “strong action...to keep our streets and communities safe.” How does the suicide of Mr. Snowshoe in solitary confinement achieve that goal?

The government talks about victims of crime all the time. How does this assist victims of crime? Where are the rehabilitation expenditures in the department? For the Conservatives, it seems that consideration is secondary to looking good to their base by saying that they getting tough on crime. They even had the audacity to title Bill C-12 as a “drug-free prisons” law. That is nonsense. We know that is not the case. All it does is confirm a power that has long been available to the National Parole Board.

[Annick Papillon, NDP, Québec, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-12, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. This bill is designed to eliminate drugs in prisons. It makes it clear that the Parole Board of Canada may use positive results from urine tests or refusals to take urine tests for drugs in making its decisions on parole eligibility.

We will support this bill, since it gives clear legal authority to an existing practice of the Parole Board of Canada, which we already support. The NDP has been steadfast in our support for measures that will make our prisons safer, while the Conservative government has ignored recommendations from corrections staff and the Correctional Investigator that would decrease violence in our prisons. Since that is our main concern, I think that the only good way to reduce crime, violence and drug use is to invest in human resources, which is what I will demonstrate. I think this is very important, since the problems and solutions can be found in the prisons themselves. All we have to do is listen to corrections staff to better understand what we can do to eventually improve the situation, because that is truly what we want.

The title of Bill C-12 is misleading as this bill will do little to eliminate all drugs from our federal prison system. The government is actually making our prisons less safe by cutting funding to correctional programming, such as substance abuse treatment, and increasing the use of double-bunking, which leads to more violence.

Our priority should be ensuring community safety by preparing ex-offenders to reintegrate into society and making them less likely to reoffend. I still think that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and that we need to consider all of the scenarios. That requires human resources.

I recently met with staff of the Aumônerie communautaire de Québec, a community organization that promotes the social reintegration of those with a criminal record. The chaplaincy's mission is to support offenders, and their loved ones, as they reintegrate into society. It is a difficult situation for everyone. The organization wants to help them become active members of society who obey the law. The people at the Aumônerie communautaire de Québec are doing a great job. We should continue to support these organizations, which all too often lack resources.

Here is a very good example. People might not know this, but in Quebec City, from 7 to 9 in the morning, there are not a lot of places where people can go to have a cup of coffee and a chat with others who can really be excellent resources. You cannot put a price on that because when people turn to those resources to talk and unwind, they can avoid committing more crimes and make better use of their time. That benefits society as a whole. That is why I am so grateful to the Aumônerie communautaire de Québec, which does unique and exceptional work that we have to support at all costs.

According to Correctional Service Canada, the $122 million that the Conservatives have spent since 2008 to keep drugs out of prisons has not reduced drug use behind bars. A 2012 study by Public Safety Canada reveals that drug-free prisons are not a realistic possibility. Even so, the Conservative government, wedded to its unfounded, ideological stance, continues to invest money in pursuit of an unrealistic, utopian goal for the simple reason that it wants to please its base, and that is just deplorable.

I have to say there has been a very unfortunate side effect of this emphasis on interdiction, and that is that it has interfered with family visits. We know that family support is crucial for social reintegration, especially for those with addictions.

Therefore, spending the $122 million wasted money, interfered with family visits and hurt rehabilitation programs.

However, such an approach is very consistent with the Conservative policy on drugs. Indeed, the Conservatives' misguided approach to public safety has resulted in more prisoners with mental illness in our prison system. A very high percentage of the offender population is struggling with mental illness. At the same time, the budget allocated for core correctional programs, such as drug treatment, has been reduced, and the Conservative government has even closed treatment centres for inmates with serious mental health disorders. The Conservatives have failed to address the growing problem of prisoners with addiction and mental illness. In 2011 for example, 69% of female offenders and 45% of male offenders received a mental health care intervention. That speaks volumes about the federal correctional system, and that is what we should be focusing on here. Once again, this of course comes back to the issue of human resources.

We do know from testimony to the House of Commons over the past 10 years that federal offenders often have to contend with long waiting lists to access core correctional programming that includes addiction treatment. We also know that the conditional release of an offender is regularly delayed due to a lack of capacity to provide timely programs. In seven institutions surveyed in February 2012, only 12.5% of offenders were enrolled in a core correctional program, while 35% were on the waiting lists to access these programs. This results in offenders simply being released after their time is served, with little or no treatment, and this leaves them more likely to reoffend.

This should signal a red alert. Prison should be just a short stint in a person's life, not a final destination with no way out. The most important thing is that once a person gets to prison and has served his full sentence, he must be welcomed back in society and be able to integrate fully into it and become a hard-working, active member of the community. That is what we really want. We want the offender to be able to integrate into society, but he needs to be given the tools to do so. As I said, we must also ensure that he is in optimal health so that he is able do so. The data we have show that we need to be more concerned about that and perhaps change our approach in order to be more effective.

The Correctional Investigator has stated in numerous reports that the corrections system risks unintended consequences when simplistic solutions are applied to the complex issue of drugs in prisons. He has suggested measures such as proper assessment of prisoners at intake into correctional programs to identify addiction problems and provide better access to rehabilitation programs as ways of reducing drugs and gang activity in prison.

As I mentioned, making prisons drug-free is, at best, a legitimate aspiration and, at worst, just a political slogan. It simply is not a policy. We cannot have a policy to eliminate drugs from prisons. We must tackle the problems of addiction and mental health in prisons.

Once again, coming back to our party's real policies, and not the scare tactics the Conservatives like to use, the NDP has always been steadfast in our support for measures that will make our prisons safer. The Conservatives, on the contrary, have ignored recommendations from corrections staff—who are the experts—the corrections unions and the Correctional Investigator that were aimed at decreasing violence, gang activity and drug use in our prisons.

The NDP is determined to create safer communities by providing treatment and rehabilitation programs for inmates that will tackle the problem of drugs and gangs in our prisons and better prepare inmates for their release into society.

There will be less crime, less harm and fewer victims.

The Conservatives' public safety policies are not effective. Inmates who are released find themselves in the same circumstances as before and thus our streets are even less safe.

We have to think carefully and adopt much more significant measures than the ones being brought forward, because we have a serious problem and a critical lack of resources. We have to come up with a much more serious approach.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the speech given by my colleague from Québec. She raised some interesting points about how the bill contains some rather unrealistic measures. Since the Reagan years and the 1980s, it does not seem as though the zero tolerance policy has been working.

Today, there are almost 2,000 offenders in our prisons—2,400 if we count those who are on the waiting list to attend a substance abuse program. That is why I believe that the government is not investing enough in programs to help offenders overcome their addictions. Approximately four out of five offenders arrive at a federal institution with a past history of substance abuse. There is therefore a great need, and services are insufficient to meet it.

Would the member care to comment on that?

[Annick Papillon, NDP, Québec, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his remarks.

I am a very practical MP and I am in close contact with community organizations that do exceptional work with very few resources. They need more resources so that they can do more.

Quebec City has many shelters, including the YMCA, the Salvation Army, Maison de Lauberivière, the Aumônerie communautaire de Québec or Maison Revivre. Many homeless people have mental health issues. Many of them will eventually get fed up, commit a wrongful act and end up in prison.

We are living in a society where we need to ask ourselves how we can improve the situation in the face of such distress. Our objective is not to fill our prisons. That costs a lot of money and does not allow those individuals to participate in the community. Sending people to prison is not good for anyone.

Prisons are very short on staff to help inmates. They need people such as chaplains and psychologists to listen to inmates, guide them and help them, slowly but surely, recover from their addictions so that they can integrate into the community and be good citizens.

This requires resources, not just on the ground, but also in prisons. That is something we should consider.

[Jonathan Tremblay, NDP, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Québec for her very enlightening speech on the Conservative government's choices.

The previous question was about sending people to prison and not allocating any resources to provide the basic services they need.

In Canada, the government has been passing so-called tough-on-crime bills to send more people to prison. The provinces often end up footing the bill, and there are now more people in provincial prisons.

I do not know what my colleague thinks about this, but the government makes decisions without consulting the provinces, although that is a very important part of every decision, and without regard for who will be footing the bill.

[Annick Papillon, NDP, Québec, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is one thing to make laws and do everything possible to have them enforced so that every little crime in Canada is punished. I understand that, but the process costs money and inevitably requires more resources.

First, we need to determine what kind of society we want. I think that far too often the provinces are left to foot the bill.

I think we need to be proactive with the issue and understand what our young people are going through, so that we can help them with clearly defined resources and prevent them from breaking the law. If we hope to identify mental health issues, we need to invest the resources. This could help prevent crime and reduce the likelihood of people going to prison. We need to address this problem proactively.

When someone is incarcerated, we need to look at his or her case and provide adequate resources. Right now, all I see are punitive laws, more people in prison and fewer resources. These people will commit the same crimes if they do not receive help in prison, and this will end up costing us a lot of money in court and prison costs.

We have to be consistent and look at everything in context.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-12, the optimistically titled drug-free prisons act.

Bill C-12 would amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act to require parole boards to cancel day parole or full parole if an offender failed a drug test or refused to provide a urine sample and if the board then considered that the criteria for granting parole were no longer met. As the law currently establishes, urine samples may be demanded on reasonable grounds as part of a random selection or as a prescribed requirement of a particular program, such as a substance abuse treatment program.

Bill C-12 would also clarify that conditions of parole or other forms of release may include conditions relating to an offender's use of drugs or alcohol. The imposition of such conditions would explicitly include cases where drug or alcohol use had been a factor in the offender's criminal behaviour.

The Liberals will be recommending that this bill go to committee for further study. However, I would like to reiterate the criticisms that my colleague, the hon. member for Malpeque, levelled at this bill over a year ago.

First, we would all like to see drug-free prisons, yet Bill C-12 takes an exclusively punitive approach to substance abuse in Canada's correctional facilities. Does anyone think this will be effective?

In his 2011-12 annual report, Howard Sapers, the Correctional Investigator of Canada, made the following observation:

A “zerotolerance” stance to drugs in prison, while perhaps serving as an effective deterrent posted at the entry point of a penitentiary, simply does not accord with the facts of crime and addiction in Canada or elsewhere in the world. Harm reduction measures within a public health and treatment orientation offer a far more promising, cost-effective and sustainable approach to reducing subsequent crime and victimization.

Mr. Sapers' report specifically stated:

—that a comprehensive and integrated drug strategy should include a balance of measures -- prevention, treatment, harm reduction and interdiction.

In 2012, the Conservative government re-appointed Mr. Sapers, giving him his third consecutive term. Accordingly, one might be tempted to think that the government would take the advice of its chosen adviser. After all, Mr. Sapers' recommendations were the product of careful and politically impartial analysis. Efficacy was the sole motivator.

Why does the Conservative government not listen to the highly qualified individuals who have been hired to give good advice and who are motivated solely by the desire to give good advice?

When Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien suggested splitting Bill C-13 into two bills, the government ignored him. When Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin of the Supreme Court tried to warn the government about its legal problem with appointments from the federal court, the government ignored her. We all remember that the Prime Minister and the Minister of Justice even went so far as to slander the Chief Justice for trying to save them from themselves. This is a worrying trend, although I do not expect the government to take my advice, either.

In this instance, ignoring the Correctional Investigator is stunning, or as my Newfoundland colleagues may say, “stunned”. Howard Sapers was vice-chairperson for the Prairie Region with the Parole Board of Canada, director of the Crime Prevention Investment Fund at the National Crime Prevention Centre and executive director of the John Howard Society of Alberta. He served two terms as an elected member of the Alberta legislative assembly, including as leader of the official opposition. He is also an adjunct professor School of Criminology at Simon Fraser University, and he has served as president of the Canadian Criminal Justice Association. That is whose advice the government is ignoring.

Instead of taking that advice, the government is opting for a purely punitive strategy. Yes, the government's only solution to drug use in prisons is to keep more people in prisons for longer periods of time. As Kyle Kirkup wrote in the The Globe and Mail, the government's thinking on criminal justice is summed up by the slogan “Got a complex social issue? There’s a prison for that”.

I suppose this should come as no surprise. Bill C-12 is business as usual for the Conservatives. It is strong on rhetoric and weak on policy.

The government consistently prioritizes optics over substance, Orwellian sound bites over logic and it does Canadians a great disservice. We see it with mandatory minimums. We see it with the failure to use evidence to formulate public policy. In its eagerness to appear tough on crime, the government goes soft on thinking.

Last year, Mr. Sapers shared some deeply troubling statistics with Canadians. His report indicated that Canada's prison population is now at its highest level ever, even though the crime rate has been decreasing over the past two decades.

About three out of four offenders in federal penitentiaries are considered to have addictions, and a very high percentage of those addicts also have mental health issues. Given the context, this new bill's punitive approach is clearly unjustified.

Further, close to a quarter of all inmates are aboriginal, although aboriginal people make up only 4% of Canada's population. In the past decade, the number of aboriginal women in prison has increased by 112%. Aboriginal inmates are also subject to use-of-force interventions and incur a disproportionate number of institutional disciplinary measures. In addition, aboriginal inmates are typically released later in their sentences—80% by statutory release—and are less likely to be granted day parole or full parole.

Still, here we have a bill that does nothing to address the historical injustice and resultant social problems that aboriginal people are grappling with today. Instead, this bill would effectively lock up aboriginal inmates struggling with addictions for longer periods of time.

The issues plaguing aboriginal communities are reported in the newspaper, and we know those are available in this chamber. Therefore, ask, when is the government going to address the problems facing aboriginal communities?

I am disappointed by the government's approach, but I am not surprised. Just a couple of weeks ago we saw what the government did with Bill C-583, the bill from the member for Yukon, that would have made fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, or FASD, a mitigating factor in sentencing. Of course, FASD disproportionately affects aboriginal and northern communities. Bill C-583 was a bill that both the Liberals and the New Democrats were ready to support, yet the member for Yukon agreed to turn the bill into a study, killing his own proposal. One could reasonably infer that the government pressured the member to do this rather than risk being seen—Heaven forbid—as soft on persons with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. However, I digress.

Speaking of this bill, we need to consider what the correctional investigator said in his 2013-14 report. Specifically, he was critical of the government's continued refusal to develop a comprehensive program. I emphasize the word “comprehensive”. To respond to continued drug use in penitentiaries, he said:

Interdiction and suppression in the absence of a more comprehensive range of treatment, prevention and harm reduction measures will not eliminate the demand (or supply) of contraband drugs or alcohol.

Mr. Sapers also criticized how the government had undermined a key correctional services program on addiction, specifically, its 10% funding cut to the prison methadone program. Mr. Sapers said:

I question the appropriateness of reducing investment in a program that delivers sound public policy benefits from both a health and public safety standpoint.

I could not say it better, and I would strongly urge the government to heed the advice of its chosen advisers by developing a more comprehensive strategy than what this punitive bill represents.

Again, Mr. Sapers set out what that strategy would look like. It would involve an integrated link between interdiction and prevention, treatment and harm reduction. It would involve a comprehensive public reporting mechanism and would involve a well defined evaluation, review and performance plan to ensure efficacy.

Finally, when the bill goes to committee, I would especially urge the government to take seriously any constructive proposals for amendments that emerge. We currently have a punitive bill that would not solve the drug problem in Canada's prisons and that would exacerbate aboriginal incarceration rates. Frankly, we need to do better, and we can do better.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, I want to set the record straight. In fact, there are programs in place in prisons to deal with addiction and drug problems because of this government. I think it would be hard to argue, even for members opposite, that serious crime in Canada has gone down since we have put in our policies.

What we are doing, which I think Canadians recognize, is ending the revolving door of the Liberal justice system. We are ensuring that people who commit serious crimes actually stay in jail, receive the rehabilitation they require and then are released when it is appropriate. However, we will not release someone back into society that has a serious drug problem.

The purpose of the bill is to ensure that if someone has illegally accessed drugs and has tested positive, that person will not be paroled back into society. Does the member agree that is an important principle, or does he feel that someone who has possibly been in jail because of crimes connected to serious drug use or organized crime should be released when still using?

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I agree it is an important principle. However, the approach of the government is this. When the only thing one has in one's tool kit is a sledgehammer, everything starts to look like a rock. While it is an important principle, it is more complex than locking people up and throwing away the key. That is the problem.

It is absolutely the case that we need to reduce the amount of drugs in prisons, but this is a nuance problem and requires a comprehensive approach. As the Correctional Investigator has said, simply locking people up and throwing away the key, which seems to be the answer for everything in the government, is not working, and it will not work. It is high time the government listened to the advice of the good people it has hired to give it impartial advice.

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened attentively to my colleague's speech and I want to ask him a question. I believe he is one of the members who sits on the justice committee. I want to ask him about what is not already in place. What is the added value that this bill would bring about, or is it, as usual, a bit of window dressing from the government?

When I look at the legislative summary of the bill, there are already a lot of conditions in place that would address the concerns. He has mentioned the title of the bill. Would the bill really change anything significantly, or, again, is it just window dressing?

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, that is an entirely fair question. Drug testing is already available to the authorities under multiple circumstances, including random drug testing and drug testing where there is reasonable cause to demand one. Drug testing in the case of compliance with a probation order of the terms of release include in them conditions with respect to drug and alcohol use. Therefore, all those things are presently in effect.

This bill calls for drug testing on someone after he or she has been approved for release or parole without the necessary governor or reasonable and probable grounds to demand such a test. It would add one more instance in which drug testing could be made available. However, the member has an entirely fair point that drug testing within the correctional system is already quite prevalent.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-12. I will refrain from repeating the title, so as not to embarrass the members across the aisle, given their ridiculous attempt to appeal to their base for campaign cash. The truth is that there is absolutely no connection between the bill's title and its objective. This is not to say that the NDP does not support the bill, for we would like to see it go the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security for further study. I wish the Conservative Party would stop treating the House of Commons of Canada like a PR firm. First of all, $750 million has been spent over the years on government advertising, sometimes for legislation that has not even passed yet and now for embarrassingly amateur marketing ploys for a simple bill.

Come on. We all need to behave like adults.

Before speaking further to the major differences between the philosophy of the NDP on prevention and rehabilitation and that of the Conservative Party on repression, I would like to sincerely thank my colleagues from Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca and Alfred-Pellan for their excellent work on public safety files. I could not be more proud of these two individuals, who devote so much of their talent, energy and intellect to coming up with intelligent, fact-based public policy that takes into account recommendations by experts in the field.

The NDP certainly does not have all the answers, but it knows how to listen to the experts in various areas under federal jurisdiction. That way, we end up with public policies that will generally not end up before the courts, which is the Conservatives' way.

I would like to begin by pointing out the incongruity of the title of the bill: the “drug-free prisons act”. This is not a government policy. It seems more like a legitimate aspiration that we all share as parliamentarians, but it is not public policy.

The real problem is addiction in prisons. Did members know that 80% of those who go to a federal penitentiary have drug or alcohol problems? That is huge.

Instead of listening to the many recommendations made by the 20 or so witnesses who appeared before the Standing Committee on Public Safety when it was studying alcohol and drug use in federal penitentiaries, the government is just formalizing an existing practice of the Parole Board of Canada. Nothing more, nothing less. Its only plan is to give the bill a catchy title worthy of a feature film featuring the late, great actor and comedian, Leslie Nielsen. Then the young, zealous staffers in the Prime Minister's Office will ask the Conservative Party base for donations because the Conservatives are such good public administrators.

I can say three things about Bill C-12. Once again, as is the case with the work of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage and several House of Commons committees, I see that the party in power does not value committee work and that the efforts made by parliamentarians every day in these committees are brusquely rejected out of hand.

The Correctional Investigator has stated in numerous reports that the corrections system risks unintended consequences when simplistic solutions are applied to the complex issue of drugs in prisons. Bill C-12 is limited in scope and is only a tiny step in the marathon that will lead to a reduction in addiction problems in prisons.

Frankly, I have a hard time believing that the member for Lévis—Bellechasse and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness is not the slightest bit embarrassed to participate in this public relations scheme that does not in any way constitute effective public policy.

Strangely enough, the government has not made any mention of the fact that the Correctional Service of Canada has admitted that the $122 million dollars the Conservatives have spent since 2008 on interdiction tools and technology to stop drugs from entering prisons has not led to any reduction in drug use in prisons. None. Oops. It has not reduced the use of drugs in prisons. Oops. It is not that difficult to come up with public policy that makes sense. The Correctional Investigator has suggested measures such as proper assessment of prisoners at intake into correctional programs in order to identify their addiction problems and give them better access to rehabilitation programs. This would help to reduce drugs and gang activity in prison.

The following is a quote from the Correctional Investigator's annual report:

A “zero-tolerance” stance to drugs in prison [is an aspiration rather than an effective policy. It] simply does not accord with the facts of crime and addiction in Canada or elsewhere in the world. Harm reduction measures within a public health and treatment orientation offer a far more promising, cost-effective and sustainable approach to reducing subsequent crime and victimization.

It seems to me that it is rather easy to ignore an annual report with a quote like that one and then to introduce a weak bill like Bill C-12.

The John Howard Society also supports Bill C-12 and the Parole Board of Canada's discretion on parole eligibility. It believes that this bill will not eliminate drugs from prisons and that this is just a tactic by the Conservatives to ignore some of the real issues in prison, such as mental illness, double-bunking, and inmate self-injury and suicide.

I want to quickly go over some of the government's contradictory public safety policies. If the Conservative government were serious about combatting drug addiction in our prisons, it would not have cut the budgets of correctional programs such as substance abuse programs, for example. It would certainly not have increased double-bunking. The government is just not able to walk the talk when it comes to public safety.

The Correctional Service of Canada budget cut announced in 2012 was $295 million—10%—over two years. Breaking the numbers down, we see that between 2% and 2.7% of its budget is allocated to core correctional programs, including substance abuse programs. Because of the cuts, that core operating budget will shrink too.

According to the Office of the Correctional Investigator, CSC's budget for substance abuse programming fell from $11 million in 2008-09 to $9 million in 2010-11. It is clear to me that these legislative measures, like mandatory minimum sentences, are increasing the prison population even as the government is shutting down certain correctional institutions. We are currently seeing an unprecedented spike in Canada's prison population.

What does all of this add up to? Correctional Service Canada has normalized double-bunking. In December 2012, the prairies were double-bunking at 21%, Ontario at 16% and now Quebec at 10%.

Correctional staff and the Correctional Investigator have repeatedly stated that this practice leads to increased violence and gang activity. The Conservative government's record is not improving; ultimately, inmates are leaving prison without treatment and are more likely to become involved in their previous criminal activities.

The figures support that hypothesis. According to the Correctional Service of Canada data warehouse, the number of offenders waitlisted to attend substance abuse programming as of November 13, 2013—excluding the Pacific and Atlantic regions—is 1,962, meaning that there are likely far more than 2,000 on wait lists now.

We should keep in mind that there are approximately 15,000 inmates in federal prisons. That means there are a lot of people on the waiting list. What it comes down to is that there is no vision and, more importantly, these weak measures are being implemented simply to fill the Conservative Party's coffers.

In contrast, the NDP has a common-sense proposal. Unlike the repressive logic of the party opposite, the NDP is determined to make communities safer with treatment and rehabilitation programs for inmates. As a result, we will be able to better address the drug and gang problems in our prisons. Moreover, inmates will be better prepared to be released into the community.

We also want to protect the safety of correctional staff by eliminating the practice of double-bunking and making sure that resources are put into treatment for offenders with addictions and mental illnesses. The best way to address addiction problems in our prisons is by treating those addictions and not by wasting $122 million on sniffer dogs and technologies that have proven ineffective.

If Bill C-12, with its ridiculous title, is the only thing this government and its pals in the Prime Minister's Office plan to do to fight drugs in our prisons, then clearly, they are not smoking the same cigarettes I am.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, to clarify the record again, the NDP member talks about prison populations exploding, and that is in fact not the case.

That was predicted by many in the media and by the NDP opposition party, and it is absolutely not the case. Again, only the NDP would think it is bad thing that someone who commits a crime actually ends up in jail.

On this side of the House, we believe that if someone commits a serious crime against a person, society, or communities, they should serve appropriate sentences. Our policies are working. Serious crime rates in Canada are down.

I want to ask the member the same question that I asked the Liberal member who spoke previously. The member from the NDP spoke about it, indicating that many who are serving serious time in jail right now are people with addiction and alcohol problems. If this is the case, and people are still getting drugs and alcohol in the prison system, should they be released on parole if they have serious drug or other illicit substances in their blood?

I am asking the member that question because on this side of the House we do not think that is a good idea, especially considering that many of the crimes were committed in conjunction with drug and alcohol problems.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in response to my colleague across the aisle, I will try to avoid lapsing into the old partisan ways that usually dominate this debate here.

This tendency to suggest that we do not take crime seriously and that we do not want to put people who commit crime in prison is just so low. It reeks of cheap, pathetic partisan politics.

I would like to point out something that simply does not make sense. I am referring to a front page showing a weapon that has been made easily available to people. It is shameful. This does not please the Conservatives' little friends, the ones who fund the party.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to pick up on the point from correctional support staff because they often get overlooked when we are dealing with legislation of this nature. The government approaches legislation of this sort with a simplistic attitude, that not having alcohol or drugs in any form whatsoever within our prisons would cure the problems.

I have had the opportunity to have discussions with correctional officers in the past, and they want to have as much harmony as possible within the cellblocks and the ranges because not only is it better for the prisoners, but it is also a safer environment for them.

Does the member believe that the passage of this legislation would help to facilitate a safer working environment for correctional staff?

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question.

Obviously, we are recommending that this bill be studied in committee because these measures have merit. The fancy titles for these measures, however, do not, because although the measures are certainly a good addition, they do not really address the problem.

The Conservatives add these catchy titles to appeal to their law and order supporters. Clearly, there is no real commitment here.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I would remind hon. members that in the course of debate it is usually frowned upon to use props, if they are used in that manner. Members will use documents from time to time and refer to them, but when something is used as a prop to support an argument, that is something that is well to avoid.

[Annick Papillon, NDP, Québec, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I was listening to my colleague and especially to the parliamentary secretary across the way.

I sometimes get the impression that the government takes this country for the set of a John Wayne movie, where there are good guys and bad guys. Unfortunately, there are rarely any grey areas in this government, but reality is full of grey areas.

I heard my colleague's speech. When I think of the outstanding work he is doing to save Radio-Canada, I feel like taking the Conservatives, pulling them out of their John Wayne world, and putting them directly into a world that helps us better understand the federal prison setting, namely the excellent show Unité 9. This show helps us understand how important it is to have human resources to better serve inmates and especially to ensure that they do not end up back at square one, that they make progress and become better citizens.

What does my colleague think about that?

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Québec for her question.

She is quite right in saying that some shows can provide insight into the reality of law enforcement and peace officers at Correctional Service Canada. Their work is extremely difficult and full of challenges, and they constantly face danger.

It is sad to see that we are again going to get caught up in partisanship. Christmas is approaching. I hope that we will hear more than just the partisan messages the Conservatives want to see in their householders.

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. This title clearly spells out the bill's objective. However, as usual, the Conservatives have added a completely misleading and disingenuous title: the “drug-free prisons act”. Some Canadians may not believe it, but it seems that this is a scourge in Canadian prisons.

I would first like to remind members that the official opposition, the NDP, and I have three main objectives when it comes to this type of bill.

First, we must ensure that correctional staff have a safe workplace. Second, we also want to build safer communities for all Canadians through treatment and rehabilitation programs for inmates. Third, we want to ensure that victims have the resources they need to get their lives back on track.

Those are the NDP's three major messages for these three groups.

Right now, under the Corrections and Conditional Release Act and regulations, urine samples can be collected. This must always be done in accordance with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but this practice is already in place in order to prevent drug use in prisons. When it comes time for an inmate to be released, he must meet certain criteria so that he does not reoffend and he demonstrates that he wants to change.

There are conditions for collecting urine samples. First, there must be reasonable grounds since inmates' rights must still be protected. Random checks can be done under certain conditions.

Urinalysis can be required for participation in activities. If an inmate tests positive for drugs, he can either be prohibited from participating in certain activities or he can enrol in a drug treatment program. What is more, controls are in place to verify whether inmates are complying with conditions to abstain from consuming drugs or alcohol, for example.

There is already a system in place, which is why I was questioning the usefulness of this bill. There should be a good reason to introduce a bill in the House of Commons. We have to wonder whether this bill truly adds anything to this issue or whether it is simply an electioneering tactic to call the bill the “drug-free prisons act”.

The amendment made by this bill makes it clear that the Parole Board of Canada has the power to impose a condition regarding the use of drugs or alcohol by stating that the conditions may pertain to the offender’s use of drugs or alcohol, including in cases when that use has been identified as a risk factor in the offender’s criminal behaviour. However, this does not add much in reality.

I would like to talk about how we can prevent drug use. We can crack down on drugs and controls can be implemented. That is important. As I mentioned, we want to ensure that corrections staff and inmates are safe. We also want inmates to have the chance to rehabilitate.

Some people who committed crimes may have been addicts. Once they are imprisoned, they should have access to drug treatment programs. In 2008 and 2009, the government spent $11 million on drug treatment programs in jails. In 2010 and 2011, that figure dropped to $9 million, which shows that this government does not want to make our prisons safer or drug-free.

The ombudsman also put out a troubling, timely and appropriate report. I would like to share a quote from it. The report followed some troubling cases, including the suicides of Mr. Snowshoe in the Northwest Territories and a young woman, Ms. Smith. They had been imprisoned in absolutely inhumane conditions. They had been put in solitary confinement.

I would like to quote an article in today's Globe and Mail:

One out of every four inmates who cycled through federal penitentiaries last year spent some time in solitary confinement, an extreme form of incarceration that is undermining efforts to rehabilitate offenders, Canada’s prison watchdog says.

Segregating a man or woman from the rest of the population is supposed to be used sparingly as a last resort, Howard Sapers, the Ombudsman for federal prisoners, said in an interview on Sunday. But the agency that runs Canada’s 47 federal prisons and community corrections centres is increasingly turning to solitary confinement to manage institutions that are crowded and lack sufficient resources to deal with high-needs inmates....

“It’s become a default population-management strategy,”....

It is a tragedy. Cells are overcrowded, creating explosive situations in Canadian prisons. Canada is a G7 country, a developed country. Successive Conservative government bills have imposed mandatory minimum sentences, eliminated rehabilitation programs and ensured that community crime prevention programs are underfunded. Community groups are fighting to keep youth from joining gangs. All of that is being underfunded.

I am somewhat perplexed about this bill, which, in my opinion, does not add much to what is already in place. However, it gives me the opportunity to point out the country's overwhelming need in terms of crime prevention and rehabilitation in particular.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Madam Speaker, the holidays are approaching, so it would be good for Canadians to see that we are not always engaged in partisan fighting here in the House. This bill offers few improvements, but it is a positive bill. I would like to ask my colleague if she is hopeful that in committee we will be able to build on what this bill has to offer.

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher for his question. I will leave it to our very capable critics to do the research and propose amendments, if need be.

I believe that there will be plenty of witnesses from civil society who will testify about the difficulties they encounter in Canadian prisons, including overcrowding and lack of resources. They will also be able to recount how dangerous this is. This bill impedes prevention and rehabilitation.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member across the way for her speech. However, as I listened to it, I kept hearing the phrase, “It is a tragedy”. It is a tragedy about the prison population. It is a tragedy over double-bunking. It is a tragedy over confinement. I wish the NDP opposition member would actually show that same empathy when it comes to the real victims of crime, the same victims of the individuals who are actually incarcerated in jail because of the crimes they committed.

The question I would ask the member is this: If someone is convicted of a crime, and other members in the house tied that to the fact that many have addiction and alcohol problems, and that individual is still accessing illegal drugs in prison and has tested positive to an illegal substance in his or her system, does the member feel that the individual should be released on parole or kept in jail, because they committed another crime? Is that actually a tragedy as well?

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness for the question.

At no time in my speech did I ever say that using illegal drugs, whether inside or outside of prison, is a good thing. However, I do not want to see any more victims in Canada, which is why I believe that strong rehabilitation and addiction programs will help keep communities safer and serve as a way to prevent future crimes. That should be our objective.

In Canada, we want to ensure that there are no victims of crime in general, of violent crime, of crime motivated by addictions or any other kind of crime. I do not disagree with the Conservatives regarding the need for strong monitoring programs to prevent illegal drugs from entering our prisons. This absolutely must be controlled and we have to make sure that drugs do not enter the prison system.

We also need to bring in substance abuse programs, as well as programs like industrial workshops to help offenders acquire skills, for example. After all, they will be released one day and will have to reintegrate. We need to make sure that they have the tools they need to avoid reoffending. That is a laudable goal. It is unfortunate that my colleagues believe that we in the NDP do not care about victims. That is completely untrue and I hope that Canadians will see that for themselves.

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, when I first found out about this bill, I was pleased to debate a bill that would get rid of drugs in prisons. Imagine my surprise when I realized that this bill does nothing to address the drug problems in our prisons.

I know that this is an election year and that the Conservative Party needs to look good in the eyes of its voters, but using legislation to deliver a misleading press release is not right. We were not elected to take people for idiots and broadcast a completely false message. This is simply unacceptable.

As for the bill itself, again we have something that is incomplete. This Conservative government makes grand announcements, but never follows through. It is disappointing.

Here we are assembled today to talk about a drug-free prisons bill, which, let us admit it, has a very narrow scope. In fact, the bill states that in making its decision for parole eligibility, the Parole Board can take into account positive results for drug tests or a refusal to submit samples for urinalysis. The Board already does that, but the law does not spell it out clearly. The bill will clarify this and that is good.

It is true that alcoholism and drug addiction in our prisons are major obstacles to correcting inmates' offending behaviours. Giving the board the authority to reject applications for parole from offenders who have not overcome their addictions is promising. The problem, however, is that nothing is being done to help or encourage inmates to rid themselves of their addictions. The government has a zero tolerance stance on drugs. Its highly idealistic aim is to have drug-free prisons. What the government does not understand is that the only way to eliminate drugs from prisons is to have no more people with drug problems. Let us look at two things. First, tougher minimum sentences for drug users mean that more people with drug problems end up in our jails. Second, without substance abuse programs in our prisons, how can we make a dent in the prevalence of drugs in our prisons? Inmates who want to keep drinking and taking drugs in prison can do so. They just need to have money and find a supplier. When something does not get into a prison, it is because the door is not big enough.

Why not take a different approach to the problem through education? Why not give people with substance abuse problems an opportunity to break free of their addictions through programs that would significantly reduce the prevalence of drugs in prisons? I know the members opposite like to say that the NDP is soft on drugs, but to me, taking measures to directly tackle the addiction problems in our prisons is not being soft. On the contrary, it shows that we understand the problem and care about public safety.

In Canada, 80% of those who end up in federal penitentiaries have drug or alcohol problems. Drugs also contribute to the spread of infectious diseases and make it difficult to rehabilitate inmates.

They have a much higher risk of HIV and hepatitis C infection because inmates usually inject drugs with needles that are shared and not sterilized. Most inmates serving sentences in Canadian federal prisons will return to their communities and take with them the diseases contracted in prison. In the end, that can affect all of us.

The Conservatives like to say that, on this side of the House, we do not care about the safety of Canadians and that we do not have good solutions, such as prison needle exchange programs. I do not want to focus the debate on this program, but given that the Conservatives constantly misrepresent it to justify their correctional policies, I feel it is necessary to set the record straight.

This program would simply protect inmates, and by extension our communities, against infection. As we have heard in the House in this debate, drugs in prison are a scourge. Even though it has spent $122 million since 2008, the government has not managed to eradicate this scourge. The needle program is a necessary hygiene health measure for inmates.

Currently, inmates who are addicted to drugs use unsterilized syringes and can contract diseases like HIV or hepatitis C, as I mentioned. When they return to their community, they are still struggling with addiction and illness. When we protect the health of inmates, we also protect the health of the communities they will be returning to.

I would now like to talk about another point in this debate, and that is mental health. In 2011, 69% of women in prison and 45% of men in prison received a mental health care intervention. Despite these staggering data, the Conservative government still has not asked for a report from Correctional Service Canada on the implementation of recommendations to improve the handling of prisoners with mental illness.

The Correctional Investigator's report on women who self-harm or commit suicide stated that Correctional Service Canada remains ill-equipped to manage female offenders who chronically injure themselves. The NDP has consistently supported measures to make our prisons safer.

On the other hand, the Conservative government has ignored recommendations from Correctional Service Canada, corrections unions and the Correctional Investigator aimed at decreasing violence, gang activity and drug use in our prisons. In addition to ignoring those recommendations, the government is cutting budgets, which is only resulting in more double-bunking and the closure of treatment centres for inmates with mental health disorders.

It is alarming that the Conservatives are saying that they are making our streets safer when I do not see how that can be true since they are cutting programs that would prevent recidivism and reduce violence. They do not have a plan to prepare former inmates to reintegrate into society by helping them break the vicious cycle of drugs, which includes trafficking, use and addiction.

Finally, before I conclude my speech, I would like to remind members that committees do not conduct studies for the fun of it. We have the mandate to examine, analyze and legislate to improve our society. What is the point of having committees and spending weeks listening to witnesses and their recommendations if those views are not taken into account?

The Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security conducted a study on the use of drugs and alcohol in federal penitentiaries. The committee made recommendations. I think it is dishonest for the Conservative government to introduce a bill that does not even take those recommendations into account.

The NDP has consideration for experts, and if the government did as well, we would not be here today discussing a bill that is so limited in scope.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, from listening to the speech by the hon. member across the way, there appears to be a common thread in all the speeches by the NDP. I will get back to that in just a moment.

First, I want to touch base specifically on what the New Democrats said about taking addictions out of prisons. They want to implement a needle exchange program in prisons so that inmates can continue using illegal substances. That does not make sense.

The common thread I have heard is that the bills we put forward in the House are aimed at appealing to our base. Since the Conservatives have taken office in 2006, among all of the other good things that have taken place, serious crime rates have gone down and our communities and families feel safer. If we are appealing to our base, which appears to be law-abiding citizens, I would like to know who the NDP is trying to appeal to.

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her question. However, I would like to correct one thing, since she seems to have misunderstood what I said. Perhaps it was because of the English translation.

First, with respect to the needle program, it is not a question of offering needles in order to encourage inmates to use and abuse drugs. It is a question of hygiene. It has been scientifically demonstrated the world over—and perhaps this escaped my colleague—that when we protect these people, we are also protecting our communities.

She also said that the NDP is lax. I would not say that. We are proposing solutions that get to the heart of the issue.

It makes no sense to put a band-aid on a gaping wound, nor does it make sense to throw money at this without actually considering the recommendations coming from those who work on the front lines. We need to be taking their recommendations into account, not the recommendations coming from on high.

[Tyrone Benskin, NDP, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, to add to my colleague's response to the parliamentary secretary's question, the NDP appeals to the innate human nature and humankind of Canadians. That is the base we appeal to.

I was trying to find some independent statistics on the number of individuals who are lifers in prison. The numbers I have found range from 15% to one-third, which means that two-thirds or more of these individuals will be leaving prison at some point. It seems to me that the money would be better spent on making sure that once these individuals leave prison they have the support they need to ensure that they do not reoffend, that they do not end up back in the system, and that they do not create new victims. In my view, this is a way that we can protect our society and make sure that Canadians are safe.

I wonder if my colleague would care to comment on that thought.

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for his very relevant comment and question.

Studies have shown that prevention and a reintegration policy would encourage more people to reintegrate into society than a policy focused on enforcement.

As my colleague said, even though people are in prison for a certain period of time, they will eventually return to their community. That is why it is better to focus on prevention and have a reintegration policy as opposed to one focused on enforcement.

I also want to say again that this bill has a very limited scope because it does not really get to the heart of the matter.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-12, which has the pompous title of “drug-free prisons act”. In fact, it will never have this effect. The measures contained in this bill will not get rid of drugs in prisons.

At the outset, I would like to say that I have nothing against this bill, but it is a bit much to say it will get rid of drugs in prisons. There is nothing new in this bill. It says that the Parole Board of Canada can decide on eligibility for parole on the basis of a positive urinalysis or a refusal to provide a urine sample for drug testing. However, the Parole Board already does this. The bill will set out in legislation a practice that exists already.

That is all right, but it is a bit strong to say that it will get rid of drugs in prisons, when this goal has not been achieved since the Parole Board started using urinalysis or a refusal to undergo a test as a basis for parole decisions.

That being said, there was a fear that this bill, which will actually only confirm what the Parole Board is doing already, would reduce the Board’s powers. In fact, this government has a habit of giving more and more discretionary authority to various ministers and less and less authority to our judges and board members for them to do their job properly. Fortunately, this is not the case here.

In fact, with this bill that does not add anything to the tools we already have, the government is trying to make its electoral base happy without dealing with the crux of the problem and without implementing measures that would actually do something to reduce it.

For instance, the government has still not followed up on the reports published by the Correctional Service in 2006 and in 2008 on strategies to deal with the problem of street gangs in prison. We know that drugs and gangs are related issues. This concrete measure would reduce the problem of drug use in prison.

In addition to not doing certain things that are necessary, the government is implementing measures that make the problems in our prisons even worse. There are more and more minimum sentences and justices are not allowed to judge. That is their job. Even though Canada’s crime rate is the lowest it has been for decades, as is the case for murders, the offender population is increasing. We are adopting policies that were used by the Americans, even though the Americans have realized that those policies did not work and have changed them.

While the prison population is going up, funding has been cut by 10% over two years. This is a significant cut. It leads to double-bunking, even as correctional staff and investigators staff keep reminding us that this results in increased gang activities and violence. Prisons become a kind of crime school, not to mention the negative impact on the safety and security of correctional staff.

Services that would support reintegration and help prevent recidivism are also being cut back. The government is constantly saying that it wants to take care of the victims. We agree completely, but why not work to reduce the number of victims? Preventing recidivism is key to doing this, as these people are at risk of reoffending.

We could work with the offender population to prevent recidivism, but instead the government is eliminating these kinds of services as well as substance abuse programs. It has been noted that 69% of women and 45% of men in prison suffer from mental illness; I mention mental illness because it often goes hand in hand with drug addiction. These numbers doubled under the Liberals and they did nothing. The Conservatives have not done anything either. In fact, the Correctional Service of Canada says that it does not have the resources it needs to do the work that must be done in this regard.

The results have been disastrous. The outcomes and particular incidents have made headlines and they are really very sad. I am thinking about Ashley Smith or Edward Snowshoe, for instance, about whom many of my colleagues have spoken. Prisons do not have the resources they need to manage these problem cases. Edward Snowshoe was in solitary confinement for 162 days. Often, we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg when someone dies or when certain incidents make newspaper headlines. This situation appears to be reflected at all different levels.

More specifically, what are we doing to reduce drug addiction in prison and ensure that people do not fall back into this rut? It is difficult to have a clear view of this situation, because Correctional Service Canada does not keep any data on the issue. By the way, this information should be kept; this would be a first step. If we want to reduce drug use, would it not be smart to keep data, statistics and information on addiction in prison? Before we try to solve a problem, it is essential as a first step that we try and understand it. Evidently, understanding has never been this government’s strong point, as it prefers to move ahead on the basis of general impressions, what the neighbour said or something of the kind. All the same, it is necessary to have more information about the problem.

We do not have any information, such as statistics, studies or analyses, but over the years in Parliament we have heard many witnesses say that inmates must wait a long time before having access to core correctional programs, such as addiction treatment. In February 2012, seven institutions were examined. It was noted that 12.5% of inmates were enrolled in a core correctional program, but that 35% were on the waiting list. The cuts will not allow for any improvement in these numbers. For years with the Liberals, there were complaints that the waiting lists were too long. Now, rather than correcting the mistakes made by the previous government, the Conservative government is only making matters worse. However, these programs are essential to ensure that people do not leave prison without having resolved their fundamental problem with drug abuse.

According to the Office of the Correctional Investigator's 2011-12 annual report, nearly two-thirds of inmates were under the influence of an intoxicant when they committed their crime. It is absolutely essential to get to the root of the problem and find a long-term solution, especially if we want to prevent people from reoffending. Saying that someone was clean for a few days before giving a urine sample is not good enough. Four out of five offenders who end up in the federal prison system have a history of drug abuse. This is further proof that drug use is a major factor. It is important to work with the prison population. The people are there and we can help them. When we help them, we help everyone. We also help Canadians because when those people get out of prison, they will be more likely to reintegrate into society and not cause any more problems.

The last point I would like to make is that Correctional Service Canada's budget for substance abuse treatment was cut from $11 million in 2008-09 to $9 million in 2010-11. That says it all.

They cut services, and then they expect substance abuse problems to disappear as if by some miracle.

[Leon Benoit, Conservative, Vegreville—Wainwright, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have heard the opposition complain about what the former Liberal government did in trying to search out root causes, which is fine, but it also did not hold people accountable for their actions. We are trying to change the system, so people will be held accountable for wrongdoing. It has clearly been effective because the crime rate for serious crimes is going down. Crime rates are dropping.

The other thing that opposition members complain about is that what we are doing is crass politics because it is appealing to the Canadian public. If it is appealing to the Canadian public, could it not be that we are doing the right thing?

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I think the member seriously misunderstood what I said.

First of all, I did not criticize the Liberals for working on the root causes. On the contrary, I criticized them for not investing enough in rehabilitation, the fight against drug addiction and prevention, just like the Conservatives. I think that my colleague really misunderstood me on that point.

As for holding people accountable for their actions, I completely agree, but that is not enough. Again, that is their simplistic approach to the situation: let us get offended and hold them accountable. We also have to make sure that people do not reoffend. Punishment alone is not enough; we also need prevention.

Also, I did not say that Canadians in general agree with the government's approach. As we are seeing more and more in polls, the vast majority of Canadians disapprove of this government's policies.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member talks about rehabilitation and then asserts blame, whether it is on the Conservatives or, from a personal point of view, even on the Liberals. Then she talks about how important it is that we work toward prevention in the first place.

I come from Manitoba, and addictions to everything, from crystal meth to other types of drugs and alcohol, are a severe problem that is taxing communities, some more than others. Manitoba has not done well. Provincial governments need to play a leadership role in providing proper programming, something that the NDP has failed to do in Manitoba.

My question to the member is this. Does she not agree with the Liberal Party that we need to get the different stakeholders working together, meaning Ottawa working with provinces, to ensure that good solid programs are developed in communities so we can fight addictions head on, hopefully then preventing crimes from occurring in the first place?

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Absolutely, Mr. Speaker, I completely agree with my colleague on that. It is imperative that all levels of government work together to address this problem. Often more than just correctional services need to be involved. In my riding health services, police services, municipal governments and the Government of Quebec all work together to deal with crisis situations in the city linked to mental illness, drug abuse and public safety issues. All stakeholders come together around the same table.

A group called EMRII is made up of law enforcement and health care personnel who work together to deal with very specific kinds of crisis situations.

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to rise and speak for a few moments on Bill C-12.

Bill C-12 would amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act to, in effect, do what is done in practice now. It would give clear legal authority to an existing practice of the Parole Board, which we support, and that is urine testing for drugs when making decisions on parole eligibility.

What makes me crazy is the way the Conservative government holds up a piece of legislation like this, which would do an important yet fairly mundane thing by ensuring that current practice is maintained, and dubs it the drug-free prisons act. We know that the government is doing, frankly, nothing about dealing with the question of addictions in our prison system. It is an utter shame.

Estimates are that nearly half of the male population in prison and over two-thirds of the female population in prison have some form of mental illness and an addiction associated with it. Yet the government continues to cut back on rehabilitation programs and other tools and strategies that could properly be used to treat and help focus the individuals who are facing these particular challenges.

Here we are. The government is going to make sure that it is able to find out whether someone has been using drugs. It has been able to do nothing about the fact that prisoners can access illegal drugs in prison, but it is going to ignore its absolute, dismal failure on that end of things. It is going to throw them back into prison. There are no programs to help them deal with the addictions. What is the government going to do? Is it going to keep firing people back into jail, keep the doors locked, and keep throwing other people in for the same kinds of problems and never deal with them?

How is that keeping our communities safe? How is that dealing at all with the problem that exists, to a lesser degree, but is nonetheless a problem?

It reminds me that there is a service in my community of Dartmouth run by the Freedom Foundation, which is a recovery house for men. They have 14 beds. The foundation provides services to men who acknowledge that they have addictions and are committed to dealing with them, and it does so at a fraction of the cost that would be faced if there were any programs in prisons. Certainly the cost of warehousing people in prison is a fraction of the cost that would be spent if the government invested in programs like the Freedom Foundation to help men make this transition to a drug and alcohol-free life.

The foundation has served over 1,000 men over the past 25 years and has helped them become drug and alcohol free. It is a remarkable program. It supports the kinds of issues the government would if it were truly concerned about drugs in prisons and in society, if it were truly concerned about helping Canadians deal with addictions, which, in far too many cases, are associated with incarceration. Then once and for all we would begin to deal in a substantive, productive, and constructive way with the issue of making our communities safer and more productive.

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, whose presentation has left me speechless. He really underscored some of the points we are trying to make.

I would remind the Conservatives that we in the official opposition support prevention so that Canada does not have any more victims. That is really what we want to stand up for.

We have a great deal of sympathy for what victims of crime go through, and we cannot help but do so. We want to make sure that appropriate resources are made available to victims so that they can start enjoying life again.

We support prevention so that there are no victims. We also support prevention when it comes to drug use and addiction, but proper resources need to be in place.

Would my colleague like to talk some more about some of the measures taken in the Halifax and Dartmouth area to prevent substance abuse, so that people can access rehabilitation programs and communities can be safer?

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I would absolutely agree with the member. We have stated on more than one occasion in the House that the New Democratic Party is in favour of programs and policies and support to help make our communities safer. We understand that to do that, we need to deal with the situations in our communities that are creating the problems, whether it is poverty, mental illness, or addictions. We need to make sure that people understand the consequences of their actions. We need to deal with those clearly and without hesitation.

We also have to understand that these are complicated issues and that people need support to get through issues like mental illness. They need treatment to deal with their problems. Whether it is through pharmaceuticals or therapy, we need to make sure that those kinds of supports are in place not only in the institutions but in communities. A number of those types of programs are available in Dartmouth--Cole Harbour, as they are across the country, to help people deal with their connections to their communities.

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my colleague, who has a lot of experience in Parliament and in his home province of Nova Scotia. When a government introduces a bill, does it not have to have clear objectives?

I have noticed today that only the official opposition and the opposition have spoken about a government bill, even though the member tells me that it should be a priority for the government and it should speak to these priorities.

Does the member truly believe that this bill contributes anything new to the existing procedure, or was it introduced simply to win votes?

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

It is absolutely the case, Mr. Speaker. If the government is going to promote a piece of legislation as something it is not, it at least should have the courage to get up and explain why it feels it is able to consider a piece of legislation that is completely and patently false.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I declare the motion carried. Accordingly, the bill stands referred to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.

(Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to a committee)