The first thing I would say is that in regard to victims of crime, we are very conscious that this is an area of shared jurisdiction with the provinces and territories and that, when the federal government is going to legislate in regard to victims of crime, we have to limit our legislation to that which is properly within federal competency.
These amendments, we believe, are within the federal prerogative for criminal law as part of a sentence. We believe they fit within the principles of sentencing and specific general deterrence and also respect the principle of the totality of the sentence.