Mr. Speaker, it is an important question. I do not believe the government has provided any serious statistical analysis about the impact of this legislation on reduced pressure on our remand centres and our prisons. We do know from some of the statistics gathered by provincial governments that, in fact, when it comes to remands, the national average remand count has increased by more than 85% since 1990. A review in one province found that only 43% of those on remand for less than 30 days had applied for bail and that only 8% of those on remand longer than 30 days received bail. On any given day, about half of the new remanded prisoners will never even apply for bail and will be on remand status for several months.
That gives an idea of the impact of the present system on remand. It does not give any idea of what will happen in terms of our prisons and how the bill will change that. I will say this, though, finally we have to, as many have said, think outside the box. We have to think of creative release policies. We have to think of community escort orders. We have to think of dedicated gang outreach workers. We have to think of volunteer community supervisors, and most of all, we have to think about alternatives to keep kids out of jail in the first place, because surely if we want to start anywhere, it is crime prevention when it comes to the youngest in our society so that we do not have this repeat cycle through our penal system and continuation in a life of crime. That is the solution in the long run to this very serious issue.