Mr. Speaker, that is a very interesting question. I have been working quite hard with the John Howard Society, which has an office just in front of my office on Ellice Avenue. I am very proud of the work. I often have the chance to go over and speak with them. They have had a halfway house in the past few years where I could go to speak with people who had just been recently released from prison and hear their own stories directly from them.
Solitary confinement is a terrible thing. In the military it was used quite often against prisoners in POW camps. It is a form of torturing people because, over time, it erodes your sense of humanity. It erodes your sense of connection. As human beings are social animals, we do need contact with others.
I think the difference with this bill is that we are trying to define, to a greater extent, what intervention will actually look like, and if we must have rehabilitative programs, what those would entail. In this case, we must have meaningful contact. The bill refers to “an opportunity for meaningful human contact and an opportunity to participate in programs and to have access to services that respond to the inmate’s specific needs and the risks posed by the inmate.” I think that is extremely important, because there are other clauses here that refer to a health care professional. Their ruling is important and if the inmate is suffering from mental health duress, then that must have a review, and it goes immediately, I believe, to the commissioner of Correctional Service Canada.