Alistair MacGregor has assured Duncan city council that the federal NDP are committed to helping to make released inmates from Canadian prisons as prepared as possible to reenter society.
MacGregor, MP for Cowichan-Malahat-Langford, was explaining to council the proposed changes to the country’s bail system, outlined in Bill C-48 which was introduced by the federal government on May 16, that the House of Commons is considering.
The bill proposes a number of changes to help address the challenges posed at the bail stage by repeat violent offenders with weapons, including for offences involving firearms, knives, and bear spray.
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The proposed changes to Canada’s criminal code comes after two police officers were recently shot and killed by repeat violent offenders who were on bail.
But Duncan Coun. Stacy Middlemiss asked MacGregor if the deliberations of the bill in Ottawa also involve discussions around how to support those who are being released from the prison system after serving their sentences.
“We can put all the people in jail that we want, but the criminal justice system needs to better support people when they get out of prison,” she said.
Middlemiss said there are a lack of supports to help prisoners prepare to be released in many Canadian prisons, and it seems that the authorities expect them to be “miraculously fixed” when they get out.
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“In my own work, I see a lot of clients who have gotten out of prison and they had every intention of changing their lives, but they get out and they have nothing, no housing or anything,” she said.
“It’s often not long before they go back to the one thing they know. Is this also being discussed?”
MacGregor said that it’s definitely the intention of the federal NDP to make that part of the conversation.
“Bill C-48 is a very narrow surgical fix to the criminal code, and it’s a fact that the justice system is a complex piece that can’t be fixed by just this one bill,” he said.
MacGregor said he has recently talked to workers in a number of prisons and it was clear that they are extremely under resourced.
“Just relying on putting people in prison is not going to solve the problem of how they got there in the first place,” he said. “We [the NDP] ultimately have a goal of trying to support these individuals. We want to make them accountable for their actions, but we also want them to return to society and make them productive and feel like fulfilled members of society. We do intend to make that part of the conversation.”
robert.barron@cowichanvalleycitizen.com
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