Mr. Speaker, following my colleague's positive words, I want to support my colleague from Scarborough Centre because this bill, although not votable, puts a positive bent on what we are talking about.
My colleague from Ottawa Centre pointed out that a lot of the initiatives of the government in the justice area are aimed at prevention and have been successful.
I would say to my colleague from Surrey-White Rock-South Langley that this is a positive bill. Her remarks seem to suggest that there is only one way to deal with transgressors in society and that is to put them in prison and throw away the key. I do not think that is really what she intends, but that is the way her remarks appear to me. It is very important that we judge not so harshly lest we be judged. My colleague's bill puts the other side to the question.
In the course of this Parliament about a dozen changes have been made through a number of bills to the Criminal Code. Most of them have dealt with increasing the penalties, making them tougher, increasing mandatory punishment for crimes of long term offenders and serious offenders. For example, although the gun bill is preventive, it increased the mandatory sentence to four years for a crime involving a gun. I have no objection to that. In fact I am working on a private member's bill that would increase the penalties for the sexual abuse of children.
However, this bill adds the other dimension. To go on from the mission statement concerning the job of the parole board which was mentioned by my colleague from Berthier-Montcalm, the purpose of federal correctional systems is to contribute to the maintenance of a just, peaceful and safe society by assisting the rehabilitation of offenders and their reintegration into the community as law-abiding citizens through the provision of programs in penitentiaries and in the community.
Some of those programs have been and are now very forward looking. Not only do they deal with substance abuse and anger management but also with native spirituality, elder counselling, educational upgrading and other programs appropriate to these individuals' needs. Since a preponderant percentage of the people in our prisons come from the aboriginal population, a couple of those programs need a lot more work and support, native spirituality and elder counselling.
This bill does not make it mandatory for prisoners to take part in these programs but it does hold out a carrot. It improves the chance for parole. It suggests that if inmates do not show any obvious interest in improving themselves and in living better lives when they are paroled, they will be denied it for a further period of time.
The other purpose of the bill is not to spend more money but to spend it more wisely, as my colleague said in reference to the auditor general's report in which one can read that while some programs of moderate intensity cost $2,000 per offender, other similar programs cost $7,000 per offender. This suggests there
needs to be some hard work done and the discrepancies between those kinds of costs for the same benefit need to be addressed.
A similar situation exists with programs for vocational and educational training which are much less expensive per inmate than the institutional employment programs. This means that instead of having prisoners stamp out licence plates it would be better to do it in the private sector where it can be done more cheaply. It would be better to spend the money at $7,000 a year instead of $13,000 a year to provide the same inmates with further vocational training that could be useful on parole.
I support my friend's initiative which speaks to what should be the overall aim and our reason for being. We want all our citizens to be free. We want all our citizens to be useful. We want all our citizens to contribute to society, and we have to go the extra mile to try to ensure that.