Thank you for that question, Mr. Comartin.
The society is driven by very high-quality evidence, most of which you're probably aware is produced here in Canada, on how to reduce recidivism and reoffending. And from our standpoint, the more emphasis we put on security or building prisons or—with respect to my friends here—law enforcement, the less resources are put into exactly the kinds of treatment programs that produce results.
I will direct a comment to Mr. Harris, who has absented himself for a moment. Bill C-2 does not stand in isolation. Bill C-2 stands in the context of the new national anti-drug strategy, and these things have a tendency to combine.
With respect to Mr. Harris' observation, from our standpoint, when I looked at the text of the national anti-drug strategy, I looked in vain for the words “evidence-based” or “harm reduction”. Here are two concepts that are endorsed by every expert body, from the World Health Organization to the Canadian Medical Association, and they were nowhere to be found, and that signals something to Canadians. I think the message is we're not interested in the evidence; we're interested in ideology.
Now I'm going to defer to the legal experts on the evidence base for the case you're referring to, but our persistent complaint is that we don't fund treatment programs adequately, given what the evidence says about their success in creating safer communities.