Yes, and voters.
I just think you couldn't get a more representative group of people. I commend all of you for being here.
The other thing I want to mention is that I had a town hall meeting in January in my riding and I invited people from my community to come and tell me what they thought. One of the things someone said to me was they wanted government to be more nimble and responsive. It was kind of vague to me. Again, that has been rendered very real for me here today, because I think this is a classic example.
I'm going to do something unusual in politics. I'm going to try to be kind and gentle to all of us. On the other side, representing the government, there are good people, people who care, and people who are intelligent, as we all are.
What I think is that in government sometimes we make a mistake. Sometimes we make a wrong policy move. I think the real test of a democratic responsive government, a test of its maturity, is to be able to say, “You know what? I think maybe we made a mistake here. We're taking the wrong direction.”
I'm hoping that all of us as parliamentarians listen to the absolutely overwhelming voice of people here who are telling us that this decision to close the prison farms is simply wrong.
I also want to say that--I'll declare my bias right now--not only am I opposed to closing prison farms, but here's a news alert: I'm for opening more prison farms in this country. As for the reason for that, I can't say it any better than the people I've heard from today, you people who know so much about this.
I also want to point out that there's a philosophy underlying this. Often we have a vision of prison as a place of punishment and a place of vocational training. There's another philosophy that says it's a place of correction, a place of rehabilitation, and a place of healing. I think sometimes there is overlap there. But fundamentally I'm always reminded that we call this “Corrections Canada“, not “Punishment Canada”.
I think the main thing we can do as policy setters is to make sure, as one of you said, that when someone goes into prison, they come out a better person. If we can give them skills along the way, that's good. But that's not the primary purpose of prison. It's not a vocational training centre. It's a healing centre. Providing vocational skills is only part of it.
I'm struck by this thought: what could be healthier? What could be more rehabilitative? What could be more healing than to be working on a farm, connecting with the land, working outside, working with animals, and working with nature?
I want to focus a little bit on the work with animals. I was elected in October 2008, so I've been elected for 18 months. In that time, I have visited 14 prisons in Canada and three outside Canada, so that's 17 prisons in four countries. One thing that has struck me repeatedly--and it sounds trite to say it--is that any program that uses animals is, I think, critically and profoundly important. That's because I think a lot of people entering our prisons are people who, by definition, have been broken in some way. They have emotional difficulties attaching. So I think attaching through animals is a safe and rehabilitatively sound way to go.
I also want to point out that this is not just an issue of concern to Kingstonians, as important as you are. This is an issue that's important to Canadians across this country. This is what I think prison farms do. They provide local, self-sufficient, and sustainable food development. They provide self-sustaining food for prisons.
They are therapeutic. They are rehabilitative. They provide skills and training. They are liked by inmates and correctional staff alike. The program provides pride, honour, and spiritual development, and there's a community connection.
I know that I'm doing all the talking, and I'm not going to ask a question because I can't say it any better than all of you. I think what we need to do is listen to what you're saying.
It is that last component of community connection that I think is so critical; 96% of people who go to prisons come out, so we need our communities to go into prisons, and we need people to be coming out of prisons into the community. That's what strikes me as being so successful about the prison farm system: it is one of the few programs that involves the community.
We heard that this government is going to increase funding by 25% in operational funding, by 25% in staffing, and by 43% in capital expenditures, and this at a time when they have said departments are going to hold the line. These are the increases in corrections. I agree that finding $4 million a year--in fact, finding $8 million a year and doubling the prison farms--represents not only sound policy in our country but also something that politicians of every stripe from every party in every community should be pursuing, because it makes our communities safer and our inmate populations healthier.
I have a question. It's the one question I will ask.