Mr. Speaker, my learned colleague made reference to the need for having an enforcement strategy when new laws are tabled and are about to come into force. He spoke to the need for thinking ahead for police officers in training and the need for prosecutors. In my own city of Edmonton, which, sad to say, is now fifth in order of the highest rate of gang-related incidents in Canada, we have a serious problem. It would be good to have stricter penalties but in Alberta we have a severe shortage of prosecutors.
Only a year ago, we had a mass exodus of prosecutors from both the Edmonton and Calgary criminal prosecutors offices, an exodus of a total of 56 experienced criminal prosecutors, leaving junior recruits to prosecute serious offences. Now, we are going to have even more serious offences added.
I am wondering if my hon. colleague could speak to the issue of whether or not it is good to think ahead, when one is tabling a bill, in terms of whether or not we will have the calibre of experts in place to be both investigating and prosecuting these cases.