Mr. Speaker, there is a disturbing trend. One of the fastest growing populations in prisons is women. Often they are in jail because they are stealing, and they are stealing because of deep poverty. I know of a person who stole diapers because she just did not have the money to buy them for her daughter, I believe. She was caught and put in jail. In some cases, especially for women, poverty is the root cause of some of their criminal activities. As legislators, we need to look at that and see if we could do something to make poverty history.
In the House of Commons on April 24th, 2012. See this statement in context.