Your point is well taken. If I sounded as though I was saying that all of these resources are there right now, then I need to correct myself, because most of the resources that I'm talking about have been systematically eliminated. Social services, education, and health care have been eviscerated in this country, as the provinces and territories have been allowed--with the elimination of the Canada assistance plan in the mid-eighties--to basically spend federal tax dollars in very different ways and not prioritize those who are most marginalized. I think we have to start there.
Even if you have access to public legal aid, the reality is that if you don't have a risk of going to prison and it's not represented as that in the first instance, you may start to develop a record and then become at risk of being imprisoned in the ways that Ms. Fontaine talked about, and, once you've breached, ending up in prison. That's how most people end up in prison first. Ashley Smith is an example. She didn't go to jail first because she committed an offence. She went to jail because she breached after she was on probation for committing an offence.
There are alternatives being used, but unless we shore up those very services that have been cut and unless we provide alternatives to sentencing for judges.... I do judicial education all the time. In fact, I'm in the midst of planning another one. One of the big issues, particularly for women with mental health issues, indigenous women, and poor women, is what to do if there aren't resources in the community.
I would argue that this is where the committee has a huge chance to influence the government to actually put resources back in place for those very vital services, so that we're not putting more people at risk of being marginalized and victimized; when that happens to people, the only system that can't say “Sorry, our beds are full” or Sorry, you don't fit our mandate”--sorry, sorry, sorry--is the prison system.
It doesn't take much to get charged, as probably everybody in this room knows. If you're on the street and you're a nuisance, you can be charged with mischief. If you're on the street and start asking for money, if it's perceived as problematic, you'll be charged with being threatening or all kinds of things that we see happening all the time.
I think it really is about looking at how we're spending the money and reallocating it, and not necessarily saying that it's the fault of those who are trying to shore up a sinking system. Right now we're rearranging the deck chairs on the proverbial Titanic, because we're trying to shift these women around as though we don't know what the real issue is. The real issue is this: why are they coming into the system? When we know that crime rates are going down and prison rates in other places are going down, why is it that rates for women are going though the roof? It's not related to a risk to public safety.