Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank our witnesses for their presentations this morning.
Thank you, Mr. Jackson, for your presentation. Perhaps I'll take that to our other witnesses from the Correctional Service.
I thank you for your presentation, Mr. Mallette. I know you have a very difficult job to do, and I think that if this legislation passes, your job will become even more difficult.
Perhaps I can put to you what Mr. Jackson just said as a professor who has studied this issue for many, many years and is seeking to ensure a balance between the rights of offenders and, as he said, the protection of the public and the safety of people like yourself who do your job.
We've seen reports by the Correctional Investigator about the consequences of segregation, for example, and some of the very difficult issues you face daily. You face the issue of the safety of your officers as an important matter that concerns your members, and rightly so.
Why would you...? I think you did support the notion of removing “least restrictive measures” as a part of the standard. Why is that necessary? It does clearly state now that whatever measures are taken, whatever they are, they must be consistent with the safety of your members, with the safety of officers. I just wonder whether you feel that it's really necessary to change that balance. I mean, if the balance is there for good constitutional reasons that seem to me.... You know, I've been practising law for 30 years, but I'll put on my common sense hat for a moment and ask, what's wrong with saying, okay, you don't put someone in a chokehold if holding him by the arm will work?
I'm not saying that you do that, but if you say “let's remove the standard” so that it doesn't matter what you do, if you leave that out, instead of saying as we say right now that we want to do something that's least restrictive, that's consistent with public safety, that's consistent with the protection and safety of officers, and consistent with the safety of the offender...is there something really wrong with that?
I say this as a union supporter and a guy who represented unions for many years. I'm appealing to common sense, I guess, or looking for a reason why you'd want to do that.