Some of the studies I read over the summer indicated to me--because I was looking at social enterprise and ways of trying to encourage employment for people who were leaving periods of custody--that offenders or ex-offenders are 11 to 13 times less likely to reoffend if they have employment. I can try to dig those studies up for you. But having access to revenue, having some stability, having all of those important social connections and economic connections make a startling and profound difference in terms of the likelihood of successful pro-social reintegration. So it's hugely important that people get access to employment, and it's particularly difficult and becoming more difficult with changes to the pardon provisions and other kinds of disabilities that are being imposed on offenders.
Certainly it's extremely expensive to the state in terms of both economic costs and human resources costs not to have this potential labour force working. Estimates are that 10% of Canadians have criminal records, and we want those people to be viable contributors to the workforce. If you break that down on gender lines--and there are a lot of unique and very special concerns about women--17% of the men in this country may well have a criminal record. You can't afford to run a decent economy if 17% of the males are facing significant handicaps in terms of employment and employment opportunities.