Mr. Speaker, it was not too long ago when we brought attention to this House about how certain prisons were about ready to blow as far as riots are concerned and the management-staff relations were right on the edge. That has to do with funding. It has to do with administrative attitude and it has to do with care of how the government administers its prisons.
I was quite pleased to hear that the solicitor general a few weeks ago announced something in the order of 1,000 new staff across the country would be hired. We applaud that.
There is no change in message from the Reform Party. We have always advocated we needed more facilities, not just brick and mortar in building more jails. We need more of a broader set of complex facilities. Some of them may be without locked doors, but a range of facilities to respond to the challenges if we are to have a justice system to respond more resolutely to crime. That means there will be perhaps some type of custodial facilities. But that does not necessarily mean the old-fashioned high tiers with a dome and bars.
Certainly it does mean the kind of facility that may respond to the treatment needs of individuals and also adequately separates different offenders from each other, specializes in programs but also controls their access to the community. We also consider the protection of the community first.
Remember, the Reform Party is bringing the message to the country of fiscal responsibility so that we can generate the wealth to pay for the social programs that Canadians want, for the people's agenda we might say is to provide more facilities in Correctional Service Canada. That has been the people's agenda but it certainly has not been the bureaucratic top down agenda that we have from governments for the last 15 years.
It has squeezed Correctional Service Canada. Yet the public has been asking Correctional Service Canada to do things when it really never had the resources to do. Because of the fiscal irresponsibility in other areas and the failure to set appropriate priorities, Correctional Service Canada has really been in a tough situation.
The more the government is fiscally responsible, the more it is able to generate wealth and reorder its priorities to respond to a people accountable agenda rather than a top down agenda. That is what we are looking for.