Thank you for the question.
First of all, I would be delighted to tell you that there is absolutely no presence of drugs in our penitentiaries, but unfortunately, this is not exactly the case. That's why we need to have the courage to tackle this issue. The way we can do that is, first, by reducing the possibility of drugs entering our facilities. That is what our commissioner has been working on over the course of several years.
Prisons are small communities, and like any community, every day hundreds of people pass in and out of these facilities. There are many kinds of people working in them, entering for their shifts. There are garbage trucks. There is food entering. There are inmates going in and out to medical treatments. There are offenders being gradually released who leave for a few hours and come back. They may leave for court appearances. They have visitors and sometimes those visitors may not be helpful for the rehabilitation of those inmates.
We need to adapt. We've even seen drugs entering our facilities by projectile. People can be very creative. That's why it's a big challenge for our correctional services officers.
The core of the problem is that if you enter a facility with an addiction problem and you are trying to continue that addiction, you are not headed toward sound rehabilitation. The first goal of the Correctional Service of Canada is that, while serving a sentence, an inmate has to be given the opportunity to get back into society in a constructive manner. That is why we need to eradicate the presence of drugs, but first we need to acknowledge there is a problem.
We have an issue with drugs in our facilities. That's what the commissioner is dealing with on a daily basis. That's why we've increased the resources to limit the introduction of drugs into our facilities. We have seen the results, with the dogs especially being able to detect the presence of drugs on visitors. These are the kinds of measures we have, but one thing will always remain: Every individual has a choice to make and we have to provide them with the tools, so that if they decide to be free of drugs, they will be able to achieve this goal and get back into society in a constructive manner.