Thank you for the question. I think there's some really good information to share. As was pointed out, the farms were closed and our research did not suggest that it was providing any significant changes in terms of issues around recidivism.
One of the things we have been pursuing is looking at how we modernize our overall program delivery infrastructure, as well as how we deal with the employment skills of offenders. One of the things I should add is that we have also increased our capacity to deliver programs to offenders. Since I've taken over as commissioner in 2008, we have increased by 50% the number of offenders who are completing a nationally recognized program before their federal parole eligibility date. For us, that is really significant given all the other challenges that we've been dealing with.
But to the longer-term issue, one that's always at the forefront of our minds is how do we best prepare offenders to get back into the community? We've been reaching out to industry leaders now to look at how we can have them invest in the training of offenders so we can train them and in turn, turn out workers for them. So we've started, for example, discussions with a couple of the major construction companies across the country. Getting offenders building and framing houses has become a major activity for us. Involvement in Habitat for Humanity—we've been producing a significant number of houses, and houses even for first nation communities. We also have discussions going on right now with the oil and gas industry as to making investments into Canadian citizens, giving them the training so that when they come out they can find jobs and go back into the community as law-abiding citizens.
We're taking a totally different approach than in the past where we had to own everything and pay everything. We are looking for those kinds of partners out there. We're seeing a number come to our door, saying they think there's a good opportunity. We have a potential workforce; they have a need and some money. Let's get them together.