Thank you for asking that.
There is very little. There is nothing, really, for rehabilitation. The way it stands for victims of crime in Canada right now is we take money, the 15% surcharges that are levied on various fines in each province across Canada. That 15% surcharge is federally regulated, but it is left up to the provinces to administer the funds in the manner they see fit.
Right now across Canada there is a disparity of services. If a crime happens to you in Ontario, you may get very good treatment, depending on where you are in Ontario. There is no such thing as rehabilitation, and that's what a number of victims in the last number of years have been talking about.
I'd like to make it clear, though, that victims do not want to take away any type of rehabilitation or rehabilitation funds that are going to individuals who are incarcerated right now, because it is known that there are definitely some people who can be rehabilitated. As a group for victims of crime, we definitely support the rehabilitation model.
However, this is not about rehabilitation. When someone comes out and has to go onto social services, that's a provincial matter, not a federal one.
As far as our organization is concerned, it's clear that there are limitations to what any federal government—I don't care which federal government is in power—can do for the needs of people. In my presentation I mentioned victims. It doesn't have to be victims. It can be other individuals as well. There are all kinds of different scenarios that can come up for which it would be nice to be able to have the benefit of the 104 weeks. However, that's not really realistic. That's not possible, and having said that, it has to come down to limitations.
I do not know the cost, and/or the number of individuals that repealing this portion of the Employment Insurance Act would affect. I would agree it's probably not that many, but I think it's about what we're saying to Canadians. We're comparing law-abiding citizens and the problems they have to people who have chosen to commit a crime. Whether they are male or female really doesn't matter. Not all females who are in prison—trust me—are there because of poverty.
I can go on and on about what victims of crime have to go through on the other side in relation to—I mean, there are bankruptcies.... We can cry a blue streak if we want to, but that doesn't fix the problem.
The reason I'm here today is to say that this is unfair. Our organization did not know about it. Throughout the many years I've been involved—over the past 30 years—there have been many instances of different provisions favouring the criminal that have come to light. This is one of them. We did not know about this, and we've had occasions since I was made aware of this to speak with different people. Canadians are very good people. They're very fair people, but I think any Canadian would say that this provision is unfair.