Mr. Speaker, as I indicated at the beginning of my speech, it is easy to pass laws but to have them enforced and work within our system is another prerequisite. There is no point in passing laws that will never be enforced. It happens. We have heard time and time again that the provinces are strapped and that the courts and jails are full.
It costs about $300 a day on average for an inmate, which is more than a hotel stay. However, by changing this law, 5,000-plus people would go to jail. It means that certain jails would need to be expanded and new jails built. All kinds of additional people would need to be involved. The costs would be very significant and, beyond the capital cost of prisons, much of the cost would fall on the shoulders of the provincial government.
They have clearly said that they do not have the money to do it. They do not have the people, the probationary officers or the staffing in the system to care for this. Does that not mean that we need to do more in terms of identifying those who will not reoffend? We need to allow them to have conditional sentencing or house arrest with the understanding that it is both punitive as well as rehabilitative, and look for more ways in which we can work on crime prevention.
We need prevention. It has never been in any of these bills and that concerns me because prevention is much cheaper than incarceration.