Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for his comments. I hope he was listening closely to my remarks.
The member will see in them an acknowledgement by me that in fact rehabilitation, reintegration and prevention are important measures. I know, because I have spoken to our justice minister, that those are also important measures to our government. In fact, our justice minister often remarks to me that we are the only party that actually has a balanced program which does take those things into account.
With regard to the American experience, I really hope that my friend has an opportunity to study our legislation because he will see it is entirely dissimilar to what the Americans have been doing for the last 30 years. Our legislation is targeted, focused only on the worst cases, the worst offences, and with nowhere near the kinds of consequences, in terms of three strikes and you are out, and lengthy imprisonments that the Americans have experienced.
He will see that what we are doing is really quite dissimilar from what the Americans have done.