Madam Speaker, I think the government has demonstrated through its crime prevention initiatives and in the most recent election platform where more funds were dedicated to crime prevention that this is definitely the way to protect society. We need to invest in programs. In my riding of Simcoe North there are several good examples of groups of people working with young offenders and taking a sort of sentencing circle approach, where the young offender is brought before the person who suffered the damage from the offender's acts of vandalism et cetera.
These are the types of initiatives that the crime prevention funds are there to support. Those are the kinds of initiatives that will be successful in protecting our society. We need to know that early intervention is the best method of dealing with these folks.
What we do not need are references to Karla Homolka, because that catches people's attention. I heard it referred to again today. I noticed in the TV coverage this morning that the corrections minister for Ontario was talking about Karla Homolka and using her as an example of how statutory release is not working, but Karla Homolka has been detained until her warrant expiry date.
The minister of the provincial government was referring to Karla Homolka in a statutory release situation and saying that the federal government has to fix it. The problem with the Karla Homolka case was the plea bargain that was done through the office of the attorney general of Ontario. It is a provincial issue. There is no lax federal policy that contributes to the concern that people are experiencing there. It is something that they can look to their own backyard and deal with, but no, they want to use that example because they know it catches the attention of the media and the public.
That is the type of thing we do not need. What we do need are reasonable programs of crime prevention and rehabilitation.