—“, probation, furlough, or parole relating to a drug offence,” and then I think the rest of the paragraph can continue.
I'll speak to that briefly, colleagues. We've all heard the evidence, so I won't belabour the point, but Mr. McKinnon's very laudable goal in this is to save lives, and we want to remove impediments to people at the scene calling 911.
We've heard directly from the witnesses. In fact, I think we've heard that being charged with possession is one factor, but it actually may not even be the main factor for people at a drug scene not calling 911. I believe that if we're going to make a dent in this, we should actually be evidence-based. The evidence that we've heard before this committee makes it very clear that those are the reasons people are not calling 911, and we want to do everything we can to encourage doing so.
I think it's an easy amendment. If we're going to be giving immunity to people for having possession of heroin, then a breach of probation for being in possession of heroin should also be a factor. Many people come out of jail. Just about every single person who comes out of jail on probation has a condition that they have to stay away from drugs and alcohol. Very often those people are drug addicts.
In fact, the public safety committee several years ago did a study and found that 80% of offenders inside our federal corrections system suffer from an addiction. It's epidemic. They come out of jail. Very many of them, not having access to treatment, start using drugs again. If they're shooting drugs in Vancouver or Ottawa or Toronto and are in breach of their probation for being in possession of them and can be arrested for the breach of probation, then this bill is not going to do anything. It's not going to encourage that person to call the police.
Now I'll—