I am talking about self-rehabilitation. The parliamentary secretary to the justice minister cannot tell the difference. That is the problem.
This government does not know the difference between rehabilitation programs that are sponsored by the state and the self-rehabilitative desire on the part of the individual to correct his behaviour.
The individual who has a desire to correct his own behaviour is not supported by the system in any way, shape or form. In fact, he is probably hindered.
I have received numerous calls from inmates who have former prisoners who have been in that category. The minute they were arrested, they went through the process, stepped inside the prison at that point in their life and said "no more".
The system does not deal with those who have set their hand against authority as a matter of course. It does not deal with those people. In fact, it manipulates them and allows them to be manipulated by others within the system. That is what is happening in our prisons. No one can tell me that is a positive aspect of corrections Canada. It is not.
In effect, with all the money that is being spent on rehabilitative programs all we are really doing and all the taxpayer is really doing is warehousing. There is nothing substantive. There is no skills training any more, or very little.
They are shutting down a lot of the shops within the prisons which used to teach some skills that would give them a slight advantage, if you will, by stepping out and doing something constructive on the other side. It gives them something to work for and desire. Not any more. Look at the shops being closed.
There is an organization called CORCAN. Mr. Speaker would understand that organization since he has half a dozen prisons in his riding. There are a number of votes there that might mean a lot to you, I do not know.
Here is an organization within called CORCAN. CORCAN loses money every year. Why does it lose money? It is supposed to help the prisoners with their programs. It is supposed to teach them. It is supposed to employ within. Why does it lose money? Have members ever asked themselves that?
I speak directly in a way through you, Mr. Speaker, to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Solicitor General. Why does CORCAN, the agency that is supposed to employ people within the prison system, lose money? Why, with its existence as long as it has been there, does it only employ a fraction of the inmates in each institution?
I was at one institution in Alberta. Since Calgary is my home town, I have had a chance to visit those prisons more than many others.
CORCAN has a farm on the property owned by corrections Canada, 350 cow-calf operations. Some urban people might not know what that really signifies, but it is 350 cows. They give calves every year, they feed these animals and ship off the beef.
The beef goes all over the place. It goes to other prisons and elsewhere. I have not been able to track down where. How many people would that kind of operation employ? I know farmers and ranchers who own and have operations of that size. They are family run operations. In the setting at Bowden penitentiary, there are 80 prisoners looking after what many could operate as a family operation in this country. Tell me where the justification is to that?