Madam Speaker, I am not quite sure I know how to respond to the good question of the member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough.
The initial response of the government is to create an office which creates a lens on legislation. To move it to the stage of an ombudsman, a quasi-ombudsman or 1-800 number, we on this side of the House are tempted to hide behind the old federal-provincial saw, that all we do here is create laws and the provinces administer them.
Until and unless the provinces were on side in this manner I could express a wish as a private member that we would move in that direction. I agree with the member's analysis of the testimony that time after time we heard people just want information. They wanted to know about their situation in the system, whether it was at first hearing, at second hearing, at sentencing or at parole. That is all people want to know. That is perfectly legitimate.
Unless the provinces could be signed up to a 1-800 system, a website system or whatever, I could express all the wishes I would like from this side of the table as a government member, but I do not know how I would implement them. When it goes back before the committee possibly we could go over it. Maybe we should call in some provincial AGs and ask why we cannot set up this system.
In terms of wish, I would agree with the hon. member. In terms of the ability to fulfil it, we are only talking about one-half of the problem.