Madam Chair, absolutely.
There's decriminalization of drug possession, dropping mandatory minimum sentences, as Mr. Brown mentioned, and the impact that has on the resolution of disputes. I think more fundamentally, as I raised in my remarks, the government itself, in its budget, admits and describes the various ways in which the conditions of people in society—low-income people, racialized people—is foundational to cycles of criminality.
The government spends a lot of money on criminal punishment—on policing, on prosecutions, on incarceration. These are not cheap fixes, and money is fungible. I would stress that if the goal is decreasing crime and deceasing delays, meaningful and substantial, perhaps even unprecedented, investment, in communities—which I'm happy to hear some other witnesses echoing in their remarks—is an approach that would will engage with the root causes of crime.
There are certain labels that come up in the government budget: root causes, systemic racism. I would urge the committee to take those terms seriously and not refer to them performatively, but to think about the ways in which significant change as to how we approach public safety within Canada is urgently needed if we actually want to decrease delays.
I think the ideas you're proposing may work in certain ways to tweak the system, but I would encourage the committee to think more broadly in terms of how we approach public safety in Canada.