Thank you, Madam Chair.
I want to add my voice to how difficult it is, the circumstances that you've all gone through. As a parent, I can't imagine the situations you've gone through, and, Madam Jong, of course, with your father.
Madam Jong, you made a great point and I'm going to repeat it, because I think it's important for people on this committee to hear it again. It's that victims don't make a choice; the criminals do. That's important for us all to remember when we look at these kinds of things. That's why the term is “victim”. They and their families have been victimized.
I think what we heard just now from Mr. Coderre is his complete lack of understanding of the legislation, because what we're not doing is saying that criminal A has to give $200 to victim B. That's not what's happening. The $200 would go into the victims fund, and the victims fund would then be used by the provinces to fund various programs to assist victims. These are great programs; I know many of them. I have a friend who works in the victim and witness assistance program in Ontario. She has a fabulous job.
While we're here at committee, perhaps we could ask all of you to comment on the types of programs these funds would fund. It's not just the doubling; the issue is that 80% to 90% of the time it was waived. There's going to be a significant increase in revenue for victims programs. If you could comment on that for me, please, so perhaps Mr. Coderre can be educated, and he will go back and tell his caucus, and they might support this legislation.