We will use our imagination. That is what they use all the time.
There is a rule that we could follow. I talked to the chairman of our committee, the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, and I said the member from Calgary Northeast and John Edwards, the past commissioner of Correctional Service Canada, and I visited the University of Alberta. We met with some researchers in their department who gave us some very strong messages: "We must get our message to the Parliament of Canada, it is essential for the safety of Canadians". I talked to the chairman of the committee and he suggested I put it on a letter and send it to the committee requesting that particular researching group to appear before a committee to tell it what they had found out because they were unable to get the ear of the government. Even Mr. Edwards indicated from his visit to the committee that this information should be brought to our attention and that it could be extremely important.
On April 27, 1995 I wrote a letter to the chairman of the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs. I did not even get an acknowledgement, and I am on the committee. I did not get this before the steering committee for even a suggestion that we consider it. Nothing whatsoever happened to this.
I asked the next chairman to review this, look at it and he said: "What letter? What request? I have no idea what you are talking about". In 1995 the researchers told us that if something is not done about what we are finding out, in the very near future, within the next year or two, we will see a major increase in HIV in the prisons across this land. We could do something about it but we have to have the ear of the government. You try to do that through a committee where you are supposed to. Not a chance.
They are going to get the ear of the government because I am going to the press. We will get it out. I am going to the researchers and they are going to join me. The message will get out. They have been ignored.
Suddenly last week we see a huge increase in HIV and hepatitis C in the prisons because a non-democratic body of people are not interested in what the opposition has to say. I say opposition is right here, not there. They are in with the Liberals on so many pieces of legislation they ought to have a copy of the red book to go along with the other propaganda they read.
I hope the Canadian people will wake up one day and realize what kind of people are operating this country. It is not a democratic group. We need a change.