Others who have made assumptions in this area have said it could be roughly one-third affected. I don't know if you can give any validity to that, or if it's in the ballpark, but it would seem to me that we've got to somehow get a handle on the number, based on the statistical information available, because that will tell us a lot in terms of how our system can handle the change and what it will mean.
Based on the one-third assumption, I'm trying to figure out what it means for our system. On Tuesday, when asked about the potential cost to the system, the minister said their estimates indicated that there could be additional jail sentences amounting to 442 prison-years, which equates to an annual national expenditure of approximately $21.7 million. Yet if you take the rounded figure of one-third and look at the fact that it costs about $52,000 a year to house an inmate, it looks like the costs would actually be more like $250 million.
There's a huge discrepancy, based on generally accepted information, about what the impact would be and the costs versus what the minister has told us. Have you any idea how the minister could end up with the figure of $21.7 million and what could explain the discrepancy of about $230 million?