Madam Speaker, this subject is one that seems to come up in every Parliament. The numbers do not much change because it is very rare that anyone gets out under the faint hope clause. However, there are certainly circumstances. I know from the work I have done on fetal alcohol syndrome and other alcohol-related birth defects, many people in the jails of Canada have committed very serious crimes and families of victims are very distraught and will never be the same again.
However, in our system, people who have mental incapacities have been put in jail. Being in jail will not help them. There is no rehabilitation for mental illness. There is no money to do it. In some cases such as fetal alcohol syndrome, it is not even a situation that can be rehabilitated.
Could the member comment on this? I believe Manitoba, Alberta and Saskatchewan did a survey of their own of the provincial institutions and found that about 40% of the inmates in those prisons suffered from some mental illness. The minister of justice of the day, Anne McLellan, said that it was similar in federal institutions.