Mr. Speaker, I am rising to correct the record, with regard to my speech at second reading on Bill C-5, An Act to amend the International Transfer of Offenders Act.
In my speech, I stated that not one offender, who has been granted a transfer back to Canada to resume and serve his or her sentence, has ever reoffended.
I misquoted that statistic. In fact, of 620 Canadians transferred back to Canada between 1993 and 2007, four were re-incarcerated for a new offence within two years after the expiry of their sentence. This represents a recidivism rate of 0.6% for Canadians transferred under this legislation, which compares to a recidivism rate of approximately 25% for offenders in general.
Of course we cannot compare it to the rate of offenders who are not transferred but return to Canada after serving their sentence abroad because those offenders re-enter Canada with no monitoring or record of their foreign convictions. So we do not know what those numbers are.
Mr. Speaker, thank you for giving me the opportunity to correct the inaccuracy in the record. Although my point is nevertheless valid, I regret any confusion I may have caused.