Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for raising these important points.
Indeed, I was talking about this at the end of my speech, when I ran out of time, so I will come back to that now. Very few resources are being given to police officers. Minimum sentences are being increased, which means the prison population is increasing, but the budgets keep shrinking. Criminals are being sent to prison for longer periods. Services are being cut, including rehabilitation services that are necessary for ensuring that individuals do not reoffend when they are released.
These people are being sent into prisons that do not really have the resources to handle them. The RCMP is being given more responsibilities just as their budget is being cut. This makes no sense at all and it is not the first time this is happening. There have been a number of bills whereby the RCMP gets more responsibility and less money, or at least is not given the necessary budget to do its work.
In this case we are talking about creating a sex offender registry without giving more money to the RCMP. This government is not going in the right direction. It is also making cuts to rehabilitation services and to funding for the community resources that provide prevention services.
Having a balanced approach would be much more effective than relying on mandatory minimum sentences or stricter rules—in some cases, this is good—without giving correctional services or the RCMP the money they need. We are going nowhere with this.