Mr. Speaker, the hon. member made a good speech in the sense that he set out, apparently very clearly, six or seven alternatives to the current bill.
I am surprised he is not supporting the bill because all his colleagues know the bill goes some way to meeting the complaints they have raised regarding Canada's justice system. Yet because it does not go far enough, they say they are going to vote against it, which has to be the silliest logic I have ever heard. I will set that aside for a moment.
I want to talk about the six or seven points that he raised. Frankly, they were sugar coated. I think he will admit that because although he said he wanted to look at sentencing again, he wanted to revise sentencing here and he wanted to change the rules there to make things a little different, the underlying message in almost every one of his points was that he wanted people locked up more often and for longer.
At the very end of his speech, having said nothing whatsoever about the cost of incarceration of inmates or persons in prison, he said: "Of course if we did these other things we would reduce the cost of the system". However, if he does all of the things he listed at the beginning he will increase the costs enormously. To incarcerate an inmate in maximum security costs something like $60,000 a year. It is an extremely expensive process.
What will he do to reduce the cost of the justice system? He says the government is spending too much money. The Reform Party has as its policy drastic cuts. Where will it cut in our justice system if it is to keep throwing people in jail or keeping them there for much longer?
I urge the hon. member to come to Kingston and tour the prisons. I will be glad to show him around. I think he would benefit from learning the way our justice system works and that part of the purpose of the justice system is to rehabilitate offenders so when they are released they do not reoffend. We have had remarkable success, quite frankly, in that. The hon. member should be pointing out those successes and giving figures.
If the member looked at the day parole statistics, for example, and he talked about the evils of letting people out early in their sentence on day parole, he would find that over 95 per cent of them-possibly 98 per cent but I do not have my little book here to recite the figures for him-or more are successful. It is a very successful program. It works and it helps reintegrate inmates into the community which is important for the long term development of our communities. We just cannot spring somebody at the end of a 20-year sentence and expect them to readjust to life outside. People lead a different life in there.
I am not saying that incarceration is not necessary. It is in certain cases. However it is not necessary to lock everybody up for life which is what the Reform Party seems to be urging.
Will the hon. member take a tour of prisons in Kingston and learn something about our prison system before his next speech on the subject? I know the hon. member for Wild Rose has done that. I congratulate him for it but obviously it did not work.
Finally, with respect to his own points, will he admit that what he was proposing would drastically increase costs for our prison system and greatly increase sentences for offenders in Canada?