Mr. Speaker, I will start again, with your permission. I imagine that the clock has been reset for comments.
I am a bit embarrassed to congratulate my colleague again and repeat my thanks for her very clear speech. I am a bit embarrassed, but I will do it anyway.
There was no simultaneous interpretation, but I had mentioned, and I repeat, that she spoke so clearly because of her experience in and extensive knowledge of legal issues.
I also wanted to draw attention to one of her comments about this Conservative government's populist approach. For a few months, we have all noticed that the government's approach is highly populist and very much geared toward law and order, that is, anything that has to do with legal affairs and rather restrictive legislation.
Correctional officers, who work in detention centres, do extremely difficult work with the inmates in these centres.
Yet as of tomorrow, June 1, the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers will have been without a collective agreement for four years. Four years. They work in extremely difficult conditions, as you can imagine. The more experience they gain, the more stress they have.
Ordinarily, you and I should be less stressed by the work we do as time goes by. That is true of most workers in society. But correctional officers are increasingly stressed, because they know what their work involves. They have difficult working conditions and an inadequate pension. They are asking for a pension equal to 70% of their income after 25 years of service, at 50 years of age.
There is a striking dichotomy between what this government says and what it does with regard to correctional officers.
It is nonetheless surprising that the government wants to strengthen prison sentences and increase minimum sentences. I have a question for my colleague. Do studies show that crime is on the rise in Quebec or in Canada? Does repression work? Are there examples from other countries that show that by increasing maximum prison sentences—