I’ll indicate at the outset that I’ll be sharing my time with the member for Beaches–East York and the member for Don Valley East—if he gets here on time.

I think everyone here can agree that those who have committed violent crimes, and especially those with a history of repeated violent offences, should be kept behind bars where they do not pose a threat to public safety. To that effect, I do support this motion calling on the federal government to amend the Criminal Code of Canada to keep violent and repeat offenders off our streets. However, we also cannot ignore the many testimonies made at committee regarding the negative impact that stricter bail conditions could have.

Madam Speaker, we do not need more jails in this province. We do not need to incarcerate more people. What we need to do is to shift our focus to rehabilitation and reintegration. We have to recognize that the reasons people commit crimes are often complex and take root in difficult life experience. Whether it is poverty, poor mental health, addictions, a lack of community or of a support network, abuse or previous violent trauma, the reasons that people commit crimes are not simple. They’re never simple. It is these underlying issues that we need to work to address so that we can prevent people from ending up in the situations and circumstances that make criminal acts seem like a viable option.

It is worth asking ourselves whether the crimes of these violent and repeat offenders that we’re talking about today were always inevitable, or if there was a point in each of these people’s story where someone could have intervened, where the system could have treated them differently and helped them turn their lives around before they committed a criminal act. Maybe, maybe not. But there is no doubt in my mind that there are many offenders out there for whom this is the case and for whom the experience of being detained can contribute to bring them down even lower.

Dr. Jennifer Foster stated in her submission to the committee that detaining people has an effect of hardening them, regardless of if they are convicted or not. The experience of being detained is a tough experience and has a significant negative impact on the detainee. Unfortunately, I speak from experience. My brother spent most of his adult life in and out of prison, and I can attest that, whenever he was released, he was nowhere near being better upon that release. Actually, he ended up dying of an overdose at age 38, alone in a shelter. That was back in 2006, and we haven’t made significant strides enough to help those people.

These negative impacts are only augmented when we consider the extremely poor conditions that inmates are subjected to in Ontario jails. Recently, Ontario’s Chief Coroner had nine experts review the deaths in Ontario’s correctional facilities from 2014 to 2021. In January of this year, those experts released a scathing report highlighting the lack of space, of programming and of services for inmates, all factors that help maintain the well-being of those being detained.

The report also underlined the lack of adequately trained staff, of decent management, of effective anti-drug measures, of transparency and of accountability within correctional facilities in Ontario. These failings have led to extremely poor conditions for inmates and to preventable deaths.

Of the deaths in correctional facilities during the time period studied, approximately 40% were a result of drug use and 24% were from suicide. That’s two-thirds of the deaths that could have been avoided through better addictions and mental health supports for inmates, not to mention the many other factors that could have been addressed. Given such conditions, it is not hard to understand the negative impact being detained would have on someone and the psychological trauma that they would have to deal with as they try to move forward.

Currently, Ontario’s jails do more harm than good in most cases, and this needs to change. If we want to better protect the public from violent crime, yes, we need bail reform. But more importantly, we desperately need to improve the conditions in our jails so that inmates are treated with respect and dignity and put on a path towards rehabilitation and re-integration instead of a downward spiral that only leads to more crime.

We also need to focus on addressing the complex underlying factors that lead to criminal activity. It is only by taking a whole-of-government approach, as the government side likes to say, and addressing the issue in a holistic manner that we will truly be able to reduce the number of incarcerations, effectively reintegrate offenders into society and protect the public.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’ll I turn it over to the member from Beaches–East York.