Madam Speaker, I come from a place where we have stunning coastline, innovative businesses, delicious restaurants, talented artists and a mild climate that makes me want to put down whatever I am doing and take the dog for a hike.
We have much to celebrate, but we also have one of the highest death rates from overdose in Canada, fuelled by an addictions crisis that is ruining people's lives, leaving them with traumatic brain injuries and killing far too many. The numbers have been improving but we are still one of Canada's hardest-hit communities with insufficient services, social disorder, and a crime rate and crime severity index that are both well above the national average.
Many people struggle with addiction without ever committing a crime, but when people live on the street without stable support while dealing with a serious addiction, a significant percentage will inevitably have repeated contact with the criminal justice system. It is a cycle that is hard to break. Addiction leads to instability, instability encourages poor choices and those poor choices lead right back into the criminal justice.
We have had porta-potty arson with four set on fire in just one night; a person who roamed a busy downtown mall parking lot with a hypodermic syringe attached to a toy bow and arrow; a city worker stabbed over and over again with syringes in a park washroom; addiction-driven assaults with axes, illegal firearms, knives, bricks, bear spray and human feces; and crime on boats, in coffee shops and in homes. I once had a local fire official tell me that the probability of a fire in certain kinds of buildings was 100%.
These are not organized or rational crimes. They reflect instability and create real fear in our community. The people who commit them often cannot be deterred or treated through the traditional tools of our criminal justice system. That is why I am proud to rise today to second and support Bill C-240, the offender rehabilitation act, sponsored by my colleague from Kitchener Centre. This bill combines accountability with real rehabilitation, taking a practical, balanced and long-overdue step toward improving both community safety and offender outcomes in my community and across Canada.
Canada is one of the only western countries that automatically releases offenders before the end of their sentence, regardless of behaviour. Canada's current approach does not encourage change, it does not reward effort and it does not give Canadians confidence.
This legislation would allow judges to require offenders to participate in education, training or treatment programs while serving their sentence. It would consider progress in those programs in parole decisions. It would introduce the principle that early release should be earned through demonstrated effort and real change. This comes as recidivism rates in Canada remain too high, with estimates approaching 88% for some populations.
However, if prisons are merely storage facilities, if someone walks out of custody with the same skills, the same habits and the same challenges they had when they went in, we should not be surprised when they reoffend. First-time offenders increasingly lack basic education and job skills. Many do not have a high school diploma. Others struggle with literacy and executive function. We just cannot tell a person struggling with both addiction and ADHD, who lives on the street, to show up Tuesday at 10 a.m. and expect them to be there. Education, skills training and treatment programs in corrections are linked to better employment outcomes and lower rates of reoffending by as much as 30%.
I had the chance to see this in action on a recent visit to the Nanaimo Correctional Centre. The Guthrie program is a separate, provincially funded therapeutic community unit within the Nanaimo Correctional Centre that builds life skills, responsibility and practical tools that offenders need to reintegrate into society. Participants are given the kind of responsibility that builds capacity, that teaches them to lead, and that will help them find work and build stability when they return to their communities.
Being there reminded me that the people who end up in prison for convictions tied to addiction are not just our fathers, sisters and children. They are also our teachers, lawyers and skilled workers. Addiction does not discriminate, and when it takes hold, it can unravel even the most stable lives.
Here is the rub: Programs like Guthrie exist and the expertise exists. What has been missing is a system that consistently and effectively evaluates the people in it for potential rehabilitation, encourages and incentivizes participation, and ties it to outcomes. Also missing are clear incentives and spaces for women, visible minorities and other populations who face systemic and persistent discrimination.
This bill would provide the federal government with reasons to work with the provinces to create and expand programs such as the Guthrie program, both in and out of correctional facilities, by empowering judges to prescribe structured rehabilitation programs for offenders who would benefit from skills development, education and recovery as part of a holistic healing program.
It costs roughly $125,000 a year to incarcerate someone in a men's institution and over $215,000 a year in a women's institution. By contrast, community-based programs that support reintegration cost a fraction of that, often as low as $15,000 per person per year, while delivering better outcomes. While corrections-based programs are more expensive, the investment in programs like the Guthrie program pay off in lower recidivism and better outcomes for everyone.
Bill C-240 is not soft on crime. It is smart on recovery. It would require parole boards to consider an offender's progress in completing court-ordered rehabilitation programs when making parole decisions. It would also enable stricter penalties for fentanyl traffickers by making trafficking fentanyl in large quantities an aggravating factor in sentencing.
This is the work I came to this place to do. I am deeply grateful to my colleague from Kitchener Centre for letting me and, by extension, the people of Nanaimo—Ladysmith, play a role in moving this important legislation forward.
Other jurisdictions have already shown that, when accountability is combined with structured rehabilitation, there are better results. In countries like Norway, the system places a strong emphasis on education, work skills and personal responsibility during incarceration. Release decisions are closely tied to readiness for reintegration. When someone leaves custody, they are better prepared to lead a law-abiding life. The results speak for themselves. Norway has some of the lowest recidivism rates in the world.
We should not copy any one system exactly. Canada has its own context, its own challenges and its own legal framework, but the principle is consistent. If we want safer communities, we have to reduce reoffending, and if we want to reduce reoffending, we need a system that promotes real change, not just the passage of time.
This bill would take an important step in that direction and would provide powerful incentives for the federal government to work with the provinces to expand programs like the Guthrie program across the country. The bill would do its work carefully and responsibly. It would build confidence while improving outcomes. It would be fair and effective, and it would improve public safety.
Victims and their families want a system that takes accountability seriously, but they also want a system that has a measure of mercy and opportunity for change, and they would really like to see a system that actually stops what has happened to them and their loved ones from happening to others.
By strengthening the link between rehabilitation and release, offenders have an opportunity to break the pattern to improve their lives. There is sometimes a tendency to frame these issues as a choice between being tough on crime and supporting rehabilitation. That is the wrong way to look at it, because justice requires both.
I think back to what I saw at the Nanaimo Correctional Centre. I did not see criminals; I saw people. I saw people who, with the right support and the weight of expectations, are taking steps to change their lives. I saw corrections officers committed to that goal, and I saw a program that makes a real difference.
This bill would align with those outcomes. Every time someone leaves custody, they return to a neighbourhood, family, workplace and community. One question we should be asking is: Are they are more or less likely to offend? This legislation would help ensure the answer is the one Canadians want.
For those reasons, I encourage all members of the House to support this bill, and I am proud to second and support it.