Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed listing to my colleague from Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca. He has a pretty good handle on some of the problems regarding the fact that there are a lot of repeat offenders in the system.
I had the opportuntiy of visiting a maximum security prison about two years ago in Edmonton. It is the top level of the prison service, maximum security. There are a lot of social workers, psychiatrists and psychologists working with inmates to try to bring about some rehabilitation.
As a bit of background, about 75 per cent to 80 per cent of the people in the prison at the time of my visit were repeat offenders, returned after having served sentences in the past. However, the prison officials were trying to rehabilitate these people and that is very commendable.
However, at the same time we understood there was a drug problem in the prison. They were trying to rehabilitate prisoners from drug abuse at the same time that drugs were coming into the prison. That simply does not work. The warden of the prison admitted that there was a big problem. He said the drugs came in through conjugal visits, but I suspect it is more than that. Maybe some of the prison staff may be involved. However, it is ironic that we are trying to rehabilitate prisoners for drug abuse at the same time drugs are getting into the maximum security prisons.
My colleague said that he has worked a little in the prisons in his capacity as a doctor. I wonder what his ideas would be on how to correct the problem so that we could get back to rehabilitation, which is really what the prisoners deserve.