Thank you very much.
And thank you, witnesses, for coming today.
I'd like to look at this in a positive as opposed to negative vein. If we keep telling ourselves all the negative stuff, we'll never get to the positive stuff; in other words, where we want to be.
I could go through some of the great steps we've taken over the last while, with the Mental Health Commission of Canada and some of our budgets and the amounts of money we have placed there. I could tell you the stories of dealing with some of the folks in my own riding and their comments about the closing of the institutions we referred to--they look at that as a good thing--and how we need to build community support.
I could tell you some of the good stories there, but that's not dealing with the issue today. The issue we're dealing with is as a result of government members wanting to take a look at this, because we do realize it is a problem. I'd like to not look at it from the perspective of whipping the people whose approach you don't necessarily philosophically agree with.
In particular, I'd like to ask Mr. Jones a question, because he's the current representative of the John Howard Society. Would you describe the kind of institution in which there would be what you would consider the appropriate delivery of substance abuse treatments/mental health abuse treatments? Could you describe that? You could describe it under the present context of our system, because we have to start somewhere. I'd like to hear about some of the changes that need to be made, that you believe could be made, and that would be reasonable and accepted by ordinary people on the street. In the end, they're the people every member of Parliament is responsible to.
Could you describe that? I'm not asking for nirvana, just something that's practicable, deliverable, and that has changes from the way we're doing it currently.