Thank you, Mr. Chair. In our public consultations, we heard community members speak positively of inmates doing work in their communities when they were incarcerated, that they were part of work programs and they did good volunteer work in the, or it was not necessarily volunteer, but good work in the community. It could be cutting lawns. It could be shovelling sidewalks. It could be stacking tables after a public event. The public consultation also indicated that people felt that was a very positive thing, to connect the community and the inmates together around a constructive activity, and they lamented that this program has really fallen off in recent years. We learned that the major reason that it has fallen off is that many more inmates are on remand rather than sentenced.
The corrections staff has said that they posed some security risk on remand that is not the same as when they have been sentenced, and so this component of programming has really been reduced in recent years. We heard clearly that people would like to see it come back, subject to necessary precautions. The background to this committee motion is to reflect what we heard, that the work programs were useful and that people would like to see them reinstated. Thank you.