The parliamentary secretary asked me if I want to give them experience in this kind of operation. That is all well and good. I say yes, but let us look at the other side of the issue. Does it take 80 people to feed 350 cows? What are the other 75 people doing in the meantime?
I would have to say that if they are trying to teach somebody the value of getting up at six o'clock in the morning and putting in a full day's work then I think they have failed. Five of them might get up but the other seventy-five might or might not get up because they do not have to go to work. That is the attitude in the prison system. If they do not want to go to work, they do not have to. There might be some adjustment in their pay. They may get paid $1 or $2 less per day but that is about it. There is no obligation on the part of the inmates in our prisons today to go to work.
Most of the inmates are undisciplined anyway which is why they are in jail. They have had their hand against authority right from the beginning and are not going to learn any discipline tactics there. They are not going to learn what it means to get up and take a lunch box to work. They are not going to know what it means to earn a decent day's pay. They want it for nothing and if they cannot get it for nothing then they will take it. Unfortunately, that is often their attitude and is supported by the Liberal government on that side of the House. I do not think that is a healthy attitude to develop in anyone.
The former parliamentary secretary to the solicitor general agrees with all of that. He also feels this is all acceptable and rehabilitative, but that is where the breakdown in the programs
comes. It is not acceptable. It is a failure. Unfortunately the Liberal government on that side of the House cannot recognize that at all.
Let us look at another reality of the bill in reference to deterrence. To extend temporary absence programs would actually have the opposite impact on incarceration in the area of deterrence. In other words, how is it going to deter anyone? We are talking about this so-called rehabilitative viewpoint. How is this going to deter anyone from committing a crime and being incarcerated and not wanting to go back? Deterrence is not there to make it clear to the inmate or the potential criminal.
I have dealt with enough criminals in my lifetime and put enough individuals in jail to know what their mentality is like. For the most part they get together and discuss a lot of things when it comes to crime. They discuss a matter before they even do it, especially if they are operating in conjunction with one another. They will look at it and since they are already bent, for the most part, to break the law and defy authority, they will look at the system and ask "what is going to stop me, what are the costs of my going out and committing this act?"
If they say a person is going to be sentenced to two years less a day but they will make sure the person gets out quicker now than before, which is what this bill is actually stating, then by the time it filters down into the communities they will be out quicker than before.
The deterrent aspect of the bill diminishes the present law, the present form of incarceration and the demands placed on provincial governments to keep offenders in and cut down on the cost of crime. That again is something this government will not address.
As I pointed out before, Bill C-53 places prisoner rehabilitation and reintegration as equal to the consideration of the protection of society. The bill says that rehabilitation and reintegration are equal to the protection of society. The truth of the matter is that if the bill says this, then the opposite is true. It is not going to do that because under the present rehabilitation, parole and temporary absences program, the cost of crime continues to soar in our communities.
One study states that the cost of crime is in the billions of dollars. Before getting into the cost of crime as outlined by the Fraser Institute, I am going to criticize the government and the justice department substantially because they have never conducted any studies on the real cost of crime. I pointed that out briefly before. They have never availed themselves of the existing stats or sought input from victims of crime or communities as to the impact of crime on people. They have not done studies to determine what the hospitalization costs are for victims who have been assaulted or raped. The impact of criminal behaviour on our society has not been examined with regard to hospitalization costs.
Let us look at what the report says. I am reading from page 24 on hospitalization costs: "There are hospitalization costs associated with violent crimes which should also be included as part of the direct costs of violent crime. The average number of days of hospitalization, not including simple outpatient treatment, amount to roughly one-quarter of the total number of violent incidents. That is, for the 270,000 assaults known to police in 1993, about 68,000 hospital days costing about $68 million were required to repair the physical harm done to the victims". That is just a portion of it.
The legislation coming from that side of the House does not deal with the true costs, even if we just look at the simple category-and I hate to categorize it as a category-of assault. There were 68,000 hospital days costing the taxpayer or government at one level or another money to repair those victims.
The report says that since data on the number of hospital days required to treat the victims of assault are from victim survey data, using crime incidence counts derived from victimization surveys instead of incidents reported to the police might prove to be more appropriate.
What is being said is that a victimization survey was done to prepare the report. The victimization survey quickly noted that the incidents reported to police and the actual figures of people being victimized are two different numbers. In other words the victimization rate is a lot higher than what is reported to the police. As a result the hospitalization costs skyrocketed to $550 million just to deal with assaults in this country. That is outrageous. Why would any government want to pass legislation that would further harm the people of the country? It defies logic. There has to be some explanation, but the explanation I am hearing from the government side is not logical.
I was on the CBC a short time ago and I tried to reason through some of the legislation that had been passed in reference to the criminal justice system. The victim is almost considered to be the accused. I have to say that the government sides more with the protection of the criminal than it does with the victim. It rushes in there and supports the criminal. It supports the rights of the criminal over the rights of the victim.
The facts are sitting there for all to see. They only have to take the shades off their eyes and look.
There was another study done by Brandon Welsh and Irvin Waller: "Crime and Its Prevention: Costs and Benefits". This study was done by these gentlemen at the Department of Criminology of the University of Ottawa. The study talked about shattered lives. What is it costing in shattered lives?
This bill would put the criminal back onto the street earlier so that he can victimize more people. It would allow the provinces to do the same thing. The attitude is to open the doors. The motto of the government is: open the doors so they can all get back out and do more damage. That is what is happening. That is the attitude of the government. It is unfortunate and it has a significant impact on our communities.
Welsh and Waller estimate the cost of shattered lives to be $12.1 billion each year. The study covered the period from 1991 to 1993. The cost is outrageous.
What is a shattered life? It is a murder. How do the people in the family feel? It could be a rape or an assault. It could be the cost of social services. For the most part the victims pay for their own care but those who commit the crime are supported by the state. The state rushes in to help them at every turn. It is totally unacceptable, but it is the Liberal philosophy of the day. The cost of shattered lives is significant.
The government has never measured the lost productivity of a person who has been assaulted. It has never measured whether that person is as productive as they were before. It has never measured the outrage, the fear associated with property crime or violent attacks. People have to change their lives but the government refuses to address the matter.
The bill should address the concerns of the community to its fullest and not just the bottom line of what might be in the correctional system both provincially and federally. I would support the bill, but Reform will not support this bill in this context.