moved for leave to introduce Bill S-205, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act.
Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise today to introduce Bill S-205, an act to amend the Corrections and Correctional Release Act, also known as Tona's law. The purpose of Tona's law is to ensure oversight of and remedies and alternatives to isolation in federal prisons, also known as solitary confinement or segregation, which is something that has been called out in international law as a form of torture, in fact. It is something that is still practised in federal prisons today and is something that we know causes irreversible harm to people.
The purpose of prisons is to rehabilitate people, but we know, with recidivism rates, that people in prison come back into communities not rehabilitated but more likely to offend. It is not surprising that more than 80% of former inmates actually return to prison.
I would like to thank Senator Pate and advocates for carceral reform across the country, and I want to honour the memory of the late Tona Mills, a survivor of more than 10 years in solitary confinement, for whom the bill is named. May she rest in peace.
(Motion agreed to and bill read the first time)