Mr. Speaker, I do believe my colleague has grasped the essence of where we are and where we need to go. I was actively involved in that whole area back in the 1990s and 1980s and in those days we had systems in place that were provincially operated.
People who suffered from mental illnesses and a variety of things, including addictions, which some would deem a mental illness, received the treatment in the communities and were not part of the criminal justice system. Somehow, the system has failed for many of these people and it has failed society in that the final catch-all seems to be the federal corrections service. These folks need the help long before it gets to the federal corrections service. I think we would concur with that.
What we need to do now is to find out how to fix that system. There have been a lot of experiments over the years, and I suppose experimentation takes place continually, but we on this side have deemed it necessary to put more money into mental health issues. I believe there was a budget item of $110 million to the Canadian Mental Health Association in 2007.
We need to move forward with that and we need to find those solutions so that these people do not end up in our prisons.