Let me say this: it appears that the opposition and some of the witnesses have a greater problem with the short title than the actual merits of the bill.
The bill itself, really as Mr. Sapers indicated, is designed to put into legislation what's already done in practice, and I would say, just a piece with it, and it does speak to a bit of the presentation that Mr. Sapers gave, that I think is worth clarifying. I would say it's a bit of an unfair characterization that Bill C-12 is about punishing illicit drug use in prison. When we actually look at the bill itself, first off, parole is a reward that should be worth working for. It's not an inherent, guaranteed, absolute right of prisoners to be granted parole. It should be something that they want to work toward, and if they're eligible they're granted parole.
In that respect, I view the bill not as that proverbial carrot, not as an opportunity to incentivize a person's release, but as an objective that each prisoner in our country would want to work toward and that, as you've all articulated, is something worth working toward. We have a role in facilitating their successful opportunity to achieve that.
From that lens, I don't look at providing these conditions for the parole board as a punishment, as something to revoke from them, because I view parole as a reward for good behaviour, for successful reintegration, for positive opportunities within the community to become a productive and healthy citizen. I think we could run the risk of characterizing what we're trying to achieve here as a tool of punishment. But I see this as a tool of allowing the parole board to legitimize, in a formal way, the successful release of an inmate into the community, which they have a defined responsibility to do.
In that vein, Mr. Sapers, when you look at the merits of this and the tenets of it, we've built into proposed section 123.1 some of the conditions around how they go about this sample and if they've not yet been released. But proposed subsection 124(3.1) says, and it's quite clear, that the parole board can use a positive test but then look at paragraphs 102(a) and (b) and assess whether or not that failed drug test has any impact on the offender reoffending or posing undue risk to society, or whether the release of the offender will contribute to the protection of society by fulfilling reintegration.
There's a lot of flexibility still in the hands of the parole board; so in fact this legislation isn't forcing or imposing anything directly on the parole board. It's really just giving them a legitimized, formalized legislative tool to do what they largely are already doing, but still requiring them to assess all of the real parameters that we'd expect them to assess when an inmate is released into society.
When we look at it just in that regard, I don't doubt that this isn't the panacea for drug-free prisons, but you must admit this is a fairly sound piece of legislation that allows the parole board a tremendous amount of flexibility.