Madam Speaker, my answer is yes. We cannot achieve justice in a vacuum. We have to look at what is going on all around us. I think we should at least look at how this has been handled and is being dealt with in the Commonwealth countries.
When the death penalty was abolished in 1976, the intention was not to release people back into society as quickly as possible because the prisons were full and the penitentiaries were overflowing. That is not true. Studies were done. We looked at what was going on in a number of countries. We can do that again. I would say we absolutely must look at what is happening elsewhere. We absolutely must give inmates a chance. If not, what would an individual in a penitentiary do with no chance? I can tell you that an individual who does not see a light at the end of the tunnel will commit murder or become involved in a gang. There is an interesting book called Green River Rising that I will bring to committee. It is about life in a penitentiary. The book is quite violent because the individuals have no chance. They have no opportunity. When someone has no chance left, as this bill proposes, what happens? It is not complicated. These individuals feel they have no choice but to kill or become strong arms for groups in the penitentiaries. This has been demonstrated. This will probably come up in committee. There are reports showing that violence increases in penitentiaries when individuals have no chance of being rehabilitated or released.