Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague's speech, because one of the things that I have come to realize is that legislation is a very blunt instrument. When we want to respond to a specific incident that has happened in the community and we propose legislation that runs across Canada, it has profound implications.
For example, as a former school board trustee, I dealt with the issue of zero tolerance. It seemed that every politician in Ontario at that time was jumping up with plans for zero tolerance to take all the discretion away from the school principals, to the point where I was at meetings where grade twos and threes were referred to as repeat offenders.
I would like to hear the hon. member's response on the necessity of having some level of discretion in this. If we put a blanket prescription on the judiciary, has the hon. member thought of the kinds of costs we are going to see in court battles that will be dragged out and in terms of incarceration that will be downloaded to the provinces, because there will be costs picked up by them? What about the costs to communities of the increased maintaining of jails? Has the hon. member looked into the implications that are going to result from the legislation we are talking about?