Mr. Speaker, Ashley Smith was supposed to be released from prison today.
She was sentenced as a young offender at the age of 15 in New Brunswick. She took her own life on October 19 in an isolated jail cell at the Grand Valley federal institution in Kitchener following an extensive period of solitary confinement.
Four correctional staff at Grand Valley and one correctional staff member at the Saskatoon Regional Psychiatric Centre have been charged.
Ashley's tragic death raises a number of troubling questions that must be answered.
How did a young girl struggling with mental illness and incarcerated as a young offender end up, through excessive institutional charges, in federal correctional facilities thousands of kilometres from home?
What can be done to improve the way we deal with offenders so that we minimize the recurrence of such tragedies?
When will we learn as a society that it is more feasible to invest in community safety and crime prevention programs than to pursue draconian laws that incarcerate more and more people at the expense of public safety?