Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, witnesses. I want to particularly single out Mr. Trudell, who should get the frequent flyer witness award here in justice for the years I've been here.
Mr. Sapers, I want to thank you for the work you've done with respect to Ashley Smith. It's certainly something that touches us on this side, in particular since she was from my riding in Moncton.
Just to cut to the chase, this bill attempts to sort of communicate to the public that one means one, and I understand the witnesses' statements that it's a complicated system. I want to applaud what Mr. Trudell said about perhaps having unheard voices in the future. It came up last week when I asked the Canadian Bar Association two things. It seems that the Canadian Bar Association comes here and purports to represent all lawyers of both sides in an adversarial system. That's what they said. But generally we don't hear from prosecutors through the Canadian Bar Association. It's generally the voice of the defence attorneys, and there's no problem with that; it's just that we have missed the voice of prosecuting attorneys, and I take what you say very seriously, Mr. Trudell.
In addition, it's long been my view that judges have not had a voice here. Comments have been made that they're caught by the appeal system if they make a mistake, or that if there's aberrant behaviour, they're caught by the disciplinary system that exists. But I think we should have judges in to explain to us the job they do and how seriously they take it, and to partially--at least within this small committee, if it's in camera--restore confidence, which has clearly been lacking in some of the statements that have been made by our judiciary. I think those are excellent comments to the point at hand here, Bill C-25.
It seems to me--and I throw this open for a general discussion--that we're talking about a credit system that is put in place to take into account poor conditions in the detention centres. Some of the points made were that there is overcrowding, lack of programming, and lack of access to parole. So credit is given because of poor conditions. The system, once you're inside federal institutions, takes into account good behaviour. I think if we look at the sentencing principle, there always has to be a mix of deterrence, denunciation, and rehabilitation. We admit that--I think--section 718 says that's what we should be doing when we look at any time served.
On what I'll call the provincial side, we were giving credit because of bad conditions, lack of resources, and lack of training. On the federal side, we were giving credit or looking at the parole system as a way to reward good behaviour. There's a dichotomy that doesn't work, and it all comes down to, it seems to me, the deplorable state of the detention centres, the lack of resources, the lack of space.
If we want one to mean one, everything you've said talks about how horrible it is to serve dead time before sentencing. That's a function of conditions and lack of programming and lack of access to parole. So is it not down to an issue of resources to provinces for detention centres, for provincial institutions?