Professor Piché.
You've addressed the question of prison overcrowding. So my question is this. Before this legislation was tabled, my understanding was that we had a serious problem with prison overcrowding. Certain provinces have reported that they are now at 200% of capacity. The United States Supreme Court has said that anything over 137% capacity puts one on the verge of cruel and unusual punishment.
You talked about the building of prisons. Can it be said that if one builds prisons, this will alleviate overcrowding, as some have suggested? Or is the whole approach of this legislation going to exacerbate the overcrowding and thereby bring us into a constitutional concern regarding cruel and unusual punishment, and inmate violence, and in fact end up increasing crime when these prisoners are released rather than helping to combat crime?