Mr. Speaker, I wonder if my hon. colleague is aware of a recent article by Mr. Peter Blaikie who is one of the founding partners of the well-known Montreal law firm, Heenan Blaikie, and a former president of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. In an article on August 2 in The Gazette he stated:
A civilized, effective system of justice should have two overriding objectives: to protect society, perhaps forever, from the truly dangerous and, while punishing the others, using every possible effort to rehabilitate them, turning them into productive citizens. The government’s approach, in effect and almost certainly in intention, reverses these objectives. It is all stick and no carrot. It even abandons the highly successful, self-sustaining, century-old program of prison farms, which taught generations of inmates critical life skills.
I would like her comments on this.