Mr. Speaker, I thank my Bloc Quebecois colleague for his question.
I want to correct the hon. member on one pervasive myth about the Reform Party. Many of our members have been in the forefront of being advocates for the prevention of criminal activity and for using innovative methods of dealing with non-violent crime. However, for individuals who have participated in violent criminal activity and have proven to be a danger to society, the Reform Party says that the primary objective of the justice system is to protect innocent civilians. That is why we believe pedophiles should be locked up. We believe people who are repeat violent offenders should be locked up for a long time.
We also believe that for individuals committing petty crimes we should find alternative, non-custodial ways of dealing with them. We also feel there should be innovative ways of dealing with drug problems. For example, instead of incarcerating individuals we should do what was done in Scandinavia.
The post-needle park Geneva experiment is perhaps the most effective and successful method of getting hard core drug abusers off the street. In a one year period of time there was at least a 50% or 60% success rate in terms of having hard core drug abusers out of jail, in society, working, and off drugs. There is no other program like it in the world. That is what the Reform Party is pushing for, along with many other innovative ways of dealing with crime.
We very much support the aboriginal initiatives and some of the methods that aboriginal communities use to deal with non-violent crime. It is something that we could all learn from.