Thank you, Minister and Madam Morency, for appearing.
Minister, the law as it currently stands is that a victim surcharge is required to be imposed in every case without the judge having to specifically order it. To balance that, on the other hand he has the discretion to waive the victim surcharge when it's perceived it would cause undue hardship. You were citing the numbers in New Brunswick where in the vast majority of cases no victim surcharge was imposed. On the other hand, New Brunswick is one of the provinces that has a fine option program, so that in itself is curious.
In my mind am I correct in saying that this is an attempt to balance the playing field in favour of the victims? There are options to help them, to have the perpetrators of the crime pay for the cost of crime. The cost of crime according to the last study was $99.6 billion, and surprisingly 83% of it was borne by the victim. In your mind is it not an attempt to balance the playing field for the victims of crime?