Thank you.
One of the things the members may not be aware of is that correctional officers are not peace officers when they're off the penitentiary reserve and do not have immediate custody of an inmate. What that means is that, literally, the officer who was pursuing the vehicle did the right thing, which was to stop at our penitentiary reserve. Once they were gone, he could not pursue them. He would not be a law enforcement officer once he left the penitentiary reserve. That's one aspect.
Second, I've studied the Bill C-10 proposals. One of the provisions in that bill that's very positive, from my standpoint, is the fact that it would actually make it a separate offence to traffic drugs within a penitentiary. Again, some of the members may not be aware of the fact that it is not illegal to bring drugs into Stony Mountain Institution. It's illegal to have possession of drugs. The fact is that when we're taking these cases to court, typically the court is looking at amounts that are typically smaller than what they're dealing with on the streets. If I have an individual trying to smuggle 10 grams of cocaine into the institution, it is looked at as a street charge of simple possession, because 10 grams is not a substantial amount as far as the court is concerned. One of our challenges is to try to provide expert witness testimony to try to explain how 10 grams coming into the institution is more significant.