Mr. Speaker, from the statistics I have read and the information that I have at hand, I know that harsher penalties and putting people in jail longer actually increase recidivism, repeat offenders.
By putting money and resources into treatment and prevention, the chance for success is much enhanced. What we find in Canada today is that we are spending 73% of our drug policy budget on enforcement but only 2.6% on prevention, 14% on treatment and 2.6% on harm reduction.
Looking at those statistics and that information, how could we actually be entertaining a bill such as the one that is before us here today?