I would underscore that. One of the challenges we have with people coming out of prison is the incentive to continue on and believe they can make it. We certainly see that with women coming out, especially if they're single moms wondering how they're going to manage. To rack up more and more disincentives makes it a much more difficult path.
We also want people to respect the law. There's a presumption that people who have broken the law don't respect the law. That's certainly not true from where we sit. Yet if we have more and more measures like this, where someone has paid into an insurance scheme and then is disentitled after paying his or her debt to society, it will not encourage a faith that the justice system is fair and there is any interest in people being able to get out and move on.
I think there are many reasons why the rest of the public should be extremely concerned about this as well. We want young people who are learning about this, and all of us, to respect that the system is going to be fair. I know it has been suggested that perhaps this will assist victims. There will be very few victims who would say this would assist them.
Certainly when you're in the throes of dealing with an offence, as many of us know—just because we do the work we do doesn't mean we haven't experienced other things—often you do get very angry. Laws are made by people to have a sober reflection on the law, not to be taking a vengeful response. This seems like a vengeful response, and I think most people hearing it hear it as a vengeful response.
Some might support that for all kinds of reasons, but certainly that's not the fundamental basis of our criminal law.