Thank you.
I have a question for each of our witnesses, the first one to Mr. Rudin. It's a bit of a lob, but I'm sure he'll deal with it well.
Looking at the Gladue decision and looking at the sociological circumstances involving aboriginal offenders, Bill C-10 is starting to look like some kind of a scholarship program to a boarding school or crime college, if it goes into effect. I'll just put it that way and I'll leave that with you. You can think about it.
Then to Mr. Biggar, I had always understood the court's view that the charter section providing for a right to counsel—certainly it wasn't a right to legal aid, but a right to counsel. I always thought it was the right to be able to go and get yourself counsel, as opposed to the right to actually have the counsel there. Could you update us on the status of that? I think you'll be pretty familiar with it. If that right to counsel has evolved into close to having a right to have legal aid, then this is always going to be a cost component of federal legislation, especially where it involves potential incarceration.
To Ms. Sampson, you've described what I would call “adverse effect” discrimination against women, imported by this proposed legislation. There was another component that was mentioned to me, and it involves a woman—unfortunately, there are probably a lot of them out there who are repeatedly subjected to intimidation by a spouse or someone in that circumstance—in a circumstance where she might pick up his gun and say, “Not anymore”. Then, in the event the court would find that the use, of course, of that force was excessive, she—the hypothetical “she”—could end up much worse off than he. Perhaps you could comment on that.
We'll go to Mr. Rudin.