I would start by saying, first and foremost, that any connection you can make to the community from the beginning, the first day of a sentence.... If you can't prevent someone from ending up in prison, then starting the community connections from the first day is really important. That was the model that was outlined by the task force on federally sentenced women back in the late 1980s or early 1990s. It was outlined that way because it had merit. I think that too often we go to what look like broad-based cost savings, but, in fact, if we looked longer term than just a few years, we'd see they are massively costly in terms of human costs, social costs, and fiscal costs. I think that is what has happened with the programming within the Correctional Service of Canada and the focus on bringing everything inside.
As Mr. Freeland has said, there are many connections in communities. Really, one of the models that was examined when we were doing the Canadian Human Rights Commission review was an examination of someone who comes with this constellation of issues, whatever they may be, the resources attached to those issues, and the individual having some say in who they work with, whether it's an elder or a particular therapist.
Very few times has that happened, in my experience, but when it has, those have been the instances where everybody says, “This is amazing.” I was just at a parole hearing on Friday where there were exactly those such responses. They said the responsiveness of this person to an outside therapist who came in was amazing. It was not amazing to those of us who have been around the system for a very long time; it was absolutely predictable.
We need to be continually looking outside, and if the person can't go outside for whatever reason, then bring the community in. But, yes, the cookie-cutter approach to these programs has been largely ineffective. It's not that they don't teach good skills, but they're living skills, life skills approaches that preferably would be taught.
I want to just—