If you talk to a room full of people and say, “How about it? Let's provide the support and accountability network for sexual offenders,” they'll run you out of the room. And if you go back to your constituencies and say that, you're not going to get re-elected. But if you're talking about the reduction of victimization, about protecting children, about protecting college students, that's what we're about. That will get you elected. And when we talk to people about that, they start to say, “Okay, I get it. I understand it.”
We've done some evaluations and asked, “Do you think your community is any safer? Do you feel any better about being in your community, knowing that there is a circle of support there around these guys who are coming out of jail?” People say, “Yes, a little bit.” They still think they should all go to jail and be kept there, and we should throw away the key, but they feel better that there is a circle of support for the people who are coming to the community, whether they like it or not. Because in Canada we don't have civil commitment, and we don't put people away forever—not yet, anyway. So we do have people of that high risk who are coming back to our communities.
And these are citizens who are stepping forward to do something about that.
Where else, anywhere, will you find a group of citizens, an organization that involves ordinary citizens, your constituents...? And it doesn't matter what your political stripe is: circles of support and accountability resonate on both sides of the House. You guys have proven that, just in the last go-around we had over our funding. And you find that in our homes across the country as well. But where else will you find a program that engages citizens, where citizens engage their own communities in risk reduction? I don't know where you'll find it.