Thank you very much.
Thank you to the witnesses for appearing today.
As is my habit, I usually make sure I address my comments to the folks at home, because they're the people whose pockets we are--I wouldn't like to use criminal terms--digging into to fund this very meeting. And they need to know that statistics are statistics and people may--I'm not saying they do or anyone here does it--manipulate them to fit a certain particular way that we think or our view of society.
Some of the statistics I'm going to quote actually came from Corrections Canada. First of all, we hear about double occupancy and people get the impression that there are two people sharing a bed. That is entirely incorrect. It is two people in one cell, very much similar to two-in-one living accommodations, very similar to our Canadian military who share the same room and often have to share a bathroom and there is a facility within there.
By the way, Corrections Canada does meet the UN standards when there is double occupancy, and that we have from the evidence given by the head of Corrections Canada.
Another statistic we heard was that the budget increase for the creation of additional occupancy in our correctional facilities is $2.7 billion. What was left out from that statistic is it's $2.7 billion over five years. So I think it's necessary to include that.
Also, the head of Corrections Canada appeared before this committee, and we were talking about how some people were saying that as a result of the Government of Canada's changes to some of our Criminal Code we're going to create more criminals. In actual fact, if you look at the changes to the regulation, we're not creating more criminals. We're talking about those who commit, generally speaking, violent criminal acts or who commit serious crimes, white collar crimes, and we're saying that those who did commit these serious crimes are going to spend a little more time in prison. So it's not going out there and capturing new people who are creating crimes; it's actually locking up people longer who do commit crimes.
Then I'll have a question for former Congressman Hutchinson. One of the things this government did, because there was serious lack of investment in our federal penal institutions, was the former public safety minister had a report commissioned, “A Roadmap to Strengthening Public Safety”, and within that it talked about the current need for our correctional facilities to be improved and modernized. And no, sir, Mr. Hutchinson, you can't take a 150-year-old institution that looks like a dungeon and make it a place that is good for rehabilitation.
We always hear about those evil mandatory minimums, and you used the word “conservative”, and they love it over there, but I would suggest to you that many Democrats in the United States look at the Canadian Conservative Party and think we're a bunch of flaming socialists in their eyes. I have a friend who was a Democrat in the U.S. who called me that.
Canada is a pleasant blend, and I think a pleasant blend of American, because we're exposed to the U.S. culture and western European. That's our identity. We're a pleasant blend of both. I think if Mr. Waller studied it, he might agree we're a blend of both, this system of governance is that.
One of our mandatory minimums is one year, sir, for organized crime who are selling drugs, and one is a two-year mandatory sentence for those who would sell drugs to our children in and around schools. So my question would be, in the United States does that compare favourably? What is your opinion on that, sir?