Mr. Speaker, I am sorry. One of the Albertans is still taking exception to my praise of the member for Edmonton—Strathcona. I am just saying what all members of the House already know. She is the best member of Parliament from Alberta. The member for Halifax is one of the best members in the House from anywhere.
Literacy issues are fundamental. Life skills issues are fundamental. When it costs $80,000 to $90,000 a year to keep offenders in a prison for another year when that money could be put into the kinds of programs that ensure that offenders have the life skills to live a productive, honest life, it is a no-brainer. One has to be smart about these approaches.
Yet, the youth at risk programs within the crime prevention strategy were some of the first programs cut by the Conservative government. The youth at risk programs were slashed first when the Conservatives took power. Whether we are talking about life skills, literacy or work experience, in a crime prevention sense, these are exactly the kinds of programs, which the member refers to, that reduce crime in our communities.
This brings us back to the fundamental points. The Conservatives just do not seem to want to get it right. They seem to want to follow the failed Republican model on pushing up the crime rate and locking people away for a long time. If they have a soft drug or robbery offence, they are locked away for a long time at huge cost to the taxpayers. Then they are let out on the street with absolutely no rehabilitation at all.
That makes no sense. Most Canadians understand that makes no sense. Most Canadians would agree that what we actually need is a strategy on crime that includes crime prevention and reducing the crime rate. Those are the kinds of programs that the member for Halifax was mentioning, and she is right.