Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Yukon raises a very valid point. The government, and I will say this both about the justice ministers and the public safety minister, has consistently moved forward with programs and law that impose additional burdens on the provinces.
For instance, when it comes to our police forces, we are still waiting for those 2,500 police officers the government was supposed to fund. There is money in the budget. I question whether that money is in fact going to flow, because up to this point in the previous two budgets it did not. We did not get any of those police officers whatsoever. We had been assured that we were going to get 1,500 more RCMP officers. We got hardly any of those.
There is no question that the prosecution and judicial wings of our courts now are significantly overburdened. Again, first, the government has not done the assessment of how much it will cost the provinces and, second, has certainly given no indication of willingness to assist the provinces in those added costs. On those costs, by the way, both the prosecutors and our judges were already substantially overwhelmed before that new legislation came forward.