Mr. Speaker, I have just heard the Minister of Justice say that he wants to intervene earlier, and he has talked a little bit in his comments about Bill C-10 about crime prevention and community-based programs.
Following up on the comments made by the member from the Bloc, it seems that we have seen a huge amount of emphasis from the Conservative government on its crime agenda and that it is very willing to grab the Criminal Code and say, “What are we going to do to toughen up the Criminal Code and bring in more penalties?”
In certain circumstances, that is obviously an appropriate thing to do, but I think it begs the question as to what is the government's agenda in terms of crime prevention?
We have virtually had no debate on this. We have seen no initiatives from the Conservatives. I think that most people in local communities would agree that certainly law enforcement and penalties are very important measures.
However, the real building block of healthy and safe communities is around dealing with proper housing and dealing with substance abuse in a way that is actually helping people, from a health point of view, and not simply just throwing people in jail because of a health issue and a substance use issue.
I would really like to ask the minister this question. Although he made the briefest of references to crime prevention, where is the government's agenda on crime prevention and supporting strong and healthy communities? We have really seen that it does not exist from what the government has brought forward in terms of the budget and other legislative initiatives. I would like to ask him to comment on that.