Thank you, Ms. Jackman.
I'm listening with interest to your testimony. I would say that some of the other witnesses we've heard concerning offenders would contradict and disagree with your testimony that, for example, pedophiles would be good candidates for electronic monitoring—and for a variety of reasons, including that they don't believe it actually helps rehabilitate, going all the way to it being a huge risk for any correctional system to take to let a pedophile out, hoping that they would stay away from places where they could reoffend.
Also, I'm quite surprised by your suggestion that people with mental illness would benefit from having electronic monitoring. One thing that also concerns me—and I understand that when someone has conditions placed on them, it would be an inconvenience.... But there are reasons for conditions being placed on individuals, whether it's that they have a removal order because they are in Canada illegally or that they're in Canada but have broken the law. Those are consequences certainly that we recognize are important.
We want people who come to Canada illegally and who have a removal order to leave the country. I'm sure you're aware that there are right now 44,000 warrants out for arrest of people who are in Canada illegally and are lost in the system—we don't know where they are.
My challenge with what you're saying—and I'm trying to reconcile it—is that if we have individuals who are in Canada illegally or who have come to Canada as refugees or for other reasons and have been asked to leave again.... They're here illegally; they're not Canadian citizens who have broken the law and are trying to rehabilitate. In fact, what we're trying to do is make sure they leave the country as they have been ordered to.
How else, if they don't have any kinds of conditions—you don't want them to have house arrest, because that's inconvenient for them and is bothersome—and they're not supposed to have electronic monitoring...? We have 44,000 of them in Canada for whom there are warrants. How do you suggest...? And you don't want to incarcerate them. You're upset because there's a suggestion that they possibly be detained, if they come in large groups and the minister deems that we need more time to assess them. That was something you were quite adamant about with Mr. Scarpaleggia.
So they shouldn't be detained; they shouldn't have house arrest; you don't like the voice monitoring, because you mentioned that you were upset that it was used. What do you suggest we do so that we do not have 44,000 people in Canada illegally and lost in the country?