This is notwithstanding the fact that they think their criteria can differentiate between a Paul Bernardo—people with life sentences—and someone who has a fixed sentence.
My experience has been as a matter of practice. What I have experienced and witnessed is that they actually keep them all in the same category, and they do not make a distinction. That applies to their belief in rehabilitation. Let's be clear that rehabilitation and working with offenders with fixed sentences, who are ultimately going to get out, is critical. There must be the resources that allow Correctional Service Canada to carry out these important rehabilitation programs.
As I keep saying, you have to draw a hard line between the overwhelming majority of offenders with these fixed sentences and the Paul Bernardos of the world. As I said, one of the key sentencing principles in the Criminal Code under section 718 is punishment. When you commit the most serious of offences, you should be faced with the most serious of consequences. In my view, for someone like Paul Bernardo, that's spending the rest of his life in maximum security.
It seems they seem to forget. Maybe I'm at an advantage—or maybe it's a disadvantage—for having unfortunately had to do what I had to do with the video tapes. For anyone who actually understands what this man did, it's so horrific. When the experts are telling you that he's beyond treatment, that doesn't mean that you don't give him the treatment programs that exist in maximum-security penitentiaries, but you don't move him into medium security.
Notwithstanding that they say they would never move him into minimum security, in my experience, over time, there is a cascading effect that is of deep concern. In my view, it is the punishment side, and sending that message for, fortunately, a very few number of offenders, that has to take priority.