I don't envy the position you're in. It's difficult, because you really don't even know if these bills will ultimately pass, but if they do, you have to be ready to respond to them.
Our side of the table is quite interested in a movement that's going on in the United States on prison reform. It is being spearheaded in part or championed in part by Newt Gingrich, who has clearly said that 30 years of tough-on-crime, lock-'em-up reasoning has been a catastrophic failure in the United States. Not only are they going bankrupt trying to build enough prisons, but the reform is not having the desired effect of safer streets.
This is something that's obviously.... You're not in charge of this kind of policy, but you are in charge of coping with the predictable consequences of this, we think, reckless policy. But the more people we stack up in prison without services and without drug rehabilitation.... It does worry me that people are put back out on the streets sooner or later with the same social problems or lack of social skills they had when they went in.
One of the things they're doing in the United States now is drug rehabilitation. It's a big issue. They're starting to look at drug addiction as an illness and substance abuse as a sickness, not a crime, although it may lead to crime and has to be stemmed for that good reason. I know in the United States there's very little drug rehabilitation or opportunity, other than abstinence from the drug that was your problem. They're not solving the root causes of your substance abuse problems.
What kinds of programs still exist in Canadian penitentiaries to do with substance abuse? Are there mandatory programs that people go into, or are they optional? Do you find funding is adequate in that regard in your system?