Mr. Speaker, to really understand Bill C-296 introduced by the hon. member, we must remember what it says in the mission statement of the Correctional Service of Canada.
To be able to analyse and understand the hon. member's bill, we must know what this mission is. The mission, and I will read it to you from a very official document of the Correctional Service of Canada, says the following: "The Correctional Service of Canada, as part of the criminal justice system, contributes to the protection of society by actively encouraging and assisting offenders to become law abiding citizens, while exercising reasonable, safe, secure and humane control".
And we in the Bloc Quebecois want to say right away that the system may not be perfect, but it certainly is not the disaster implied by Reform members. In Canada, the correctional system works. However, there are some shortcomings. There are a number of questions, and perhaps I could get back to this later on.
When we look at the mission of the correctional service and the purpose of this bill, we see that the summary of the hon. member's bill reads as follows:
The purpose of this bill is to require federal inmates to complete programs that will assist in their rehabilitation and make their release on parole contingent upon their successful completion of such programs.
Immediately, I see something that is pretty obvious as regards the mission of the correctional service and the hon. member's bill. It is pretty obvious to me that the hon. member-and I am astonished that this should come from the government benches-is introducing a bill which is an admission of failure. That is what the bill says, because it will be necessary to require inmates to do such and such, while if we know how the Correctional Service Canada works, this is being done.
The correctional service proposes such and such, it does follow up, it assists inmates with psychological problems, problems with social reintegration, sexual problems or whatever. They will be helped in such a way that when an inmate leaves the institution, he again becomes part of the community and no one will notice the difference. That is the mission the correctional service has with respect to parole, but the bill seems to say the system has failed and that inmates will be required to do such and such that will assist in their release, to be contingent on the inmates completing the programs already available to them.
This is all very well, but I think it is dangerous to proceed this way because the government member seems to be saying there is a problem. Now, either the statistics we get from the department on repeat offenders are correct or they are not. I assume they are correct, unless the parole figures and the whole question of repeat offenders, unless the figures the Solicitor General gives us every year are not correct. However, if they are, this means the failure rate is minimal and the system works. It means that inmates are making good use of the programs available to them.
However, the hon. member's bill implies the statistics are not correct, because the hon. member has looked into this. He wants to oblige inmates to start and follow through with this process.
So the bill is not bad in itself, but I wonder whether it is worthwhile adopting this bill.
I know there are two versions with respect to recidivism. Apparently the police seem to be saying that the department's figures may not be accurate. As far as early parole is concerned-and I was very surprised to read this in L'Express , a magazine dealing with the judiciary system-we are told there is a failure rate of about 80 per cent for early parole. If this is true, there is a problem. The problem concerns early rehabilitation, or maybe there is a problem with the figures the Solicitor General gives us annually.
One thing is sure. From sitting on the Standing Committee on Justice, from considering legal issues and from questioning witnesses who have come before the committee, I know that one thing is sure. While things have not yet reached catastrophic proportions, if the cuts of the past continue, and schooling, computer training or other programs for the purposes of rehabilitation or reintegration into society are eliminated, because the prison system is obliged to cut certain programs for lack of funding, we will have a problem, whatever bill the member opposite proposes, because we will have no money to implement it.
One thing is sure, the more the cuts, the fewer programs there are for inmates, the greater the chance inmates will find themselves really unprepared on their release and back within the prison system in no time.
The bill is indeed praiseworthy, however, it is quite distressing that it comes from a member opposite and that it is conditional, because I think that, in the long run, the outcome may be affected. It is not true that the result is better in the end if we legislate someone to do something. I think that, even inside, even having prisoners do time, we could encourage them from within and not force them.
People who are in prison are not law abiding people like the general public. Sometimes they have a bit of a revolt inside. You just have to tell them they have to do it for them to not want to. I think we have to continue, focus more on existing programs and ask them to take the programs, not spontaneously, but encourage them and not force them. I think we would be asking for real trouble if we made it mandatory.
I will conclude by saying that, in the past few weeks, months and years, there have been all sorts of issues concerning the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, and so forth. Recent events have shown us that there are great gaps in the system. They have also shown us that a lot of things work well.
The government opposite does not seem to have a global view of the problem society faces with inmates and their release. There are members, here and there, who introduce private bills to change the law. Even the government, which occasionally makes changes to the law, will do so piecemeal, in an effort to find a band-aid solution. That is not how to solve the problem once and for all.
We have seen really human cases of late, in which even the father of a young girl killed by someone on parole took part in the debate, saying: "There are gaps in the correctional system. It is good in some respects, but perhaps society ought to be involved
more". Far from condemning the system, he said it needed improving. I am referring to the Bolduc case.
Instead of changing things bit by bit, instead of making minor changes to please voters, instead of tilting totally right, like the Reformers, why will the government opposite not act on the request of the official opposition? In recent weeks and months, we have been calling for a thorough examination of the entire problem by a commission of inquiry or a parliamentary commission, which would report to us. Then we would really see what works, what does not work and what needs to be changed or not. We would not be doing it bit by bit.