Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to address this issue.
I was curious about issues presented by the hon. member. He seemed to have two different issues in his comments, one in regard to minimum sentences and the other in regard to having enough facilities and enough concentration on rehabilitation.
I also had the opportunity of being a criminal lawyer in northern Alberta where 25% of the population is aboriginal, and I have seen the large proportion of aboriginals in that particular area who go to jail. It is not acceptable.
Many of those aboriginals are my family members. I remember one in particular who spent two and a half years in jail for a simple assault. In fact, he was rehabilitated. He spent time in Drumheller, in the correctional centre there, and he came out rehabilitated. He now has a wonderful family with five children, and he is doing very well. He is sober. Things are looking much better for him.
Indeed, I have had the opportunity to see it both from a family perspective and also as a criminal lawyer. I had a very active practice there.
I saw inconsistencies across the country. I saw individuals being convicted of a trafficking charge in Vancouver receiving a fine, and individuals with a trafficking conviction in Alberta receiving a year in jail for the same type of offence.
I think we need to stand up for victims in this country and we need to have consistency across the country. I want to ask the member, particularly because I do have the experience, why is he not in this particular case standing up for victims? He is talking about criminals and about not enough being put aside for rehabilitation.
By the way, this government has allocated a tremendous amount of money for new prisons and rehabilitation, and we are looking at different ways to help prisoners once they are in there.
We want to stand up for victims before it happens, before there is a re-offence. I am wondering why in this particular case the member is not thinking about the victims instead of the criminals.