Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question. It will allow me to come back to a few points that I raised. In fact, the United States are doing exactly the opposite of what we are about to do right now. They are reducing minimum sentences and instructing their judges to customize sentences in order to reduce the crime rate.
I have here a report by the U.S. administration that makes the distinction between the Canadian and U.S. budgets and the crime rate. The report says that the Americans are reducing their spending on prisons and turning to alternative solutions and community options. They have seen their crime rate go down.
The report says that Canada has almost doubled its spending on prisons, which has gone from $1.6 billion to $2.9 billion, and that the funding allocated to alternative solutions has been reduced. I do not have Statistics Canada's data on the impact this has had, but I can point out that a number of U.S. states that adopted this repressive system have indicated that it did not work. They are tyring to adopt a rehabilitation system, a system that we are now completely destroying.