Madam Speaker, I hope my friend was not implying I was trying to run away from a debate with him. I would never do that. I am happy to say that Don Head, the CSC official, and I have it in writing and I wrote notes at the time, assured us that Correctional Service was committed to continuing to fulfill its mandate. We also have on record, some time ago, $220 million from the government for further corrections facilities.
I share my hon. colleague's concern. However, I also throw back to him that we have a duty to make laws that are clear and fair. There are consequences of those laws. In this case, and I have highlighted it maybe four times now, the consequences of some of this legislation, and particularly this bill, may be that there is pressure on CSC and other provincial facilities. It is incumbent upon the government to ensure that it prepares for it. Having this debate, bringing that to the attention of people at committee is very much what we do as parliamentarians.
I, too, was somewhat disillusioned by the answer of the Minister of Justice in saying that he had consulted with the Minister of Public Safety. It begs perhaps a question of our own due diligence. I would submit for the member for Windsor—Tecumseh that maybe we should have had the Minister of Public Safety there. It seems many times at justice committee, we have issues that we really would like to ask of the Minister of Public Safety, for these very reasons, that we do not get a crack at because we have the Minister of Justice telling us that he has talked to him and that everything seems to be okay.
I am not getting that assurance from the answer. However, as I say, the government has the fiduciary duty. If there is harm done in this situation, it is clearly on the heads of the government members. We cannot avoid our duty in enacting, approving and supporting laws that we think make it clearer and make the judge's job easier to administer the law and more useful to us by those endorsements that will report on conditions in our prisons across the country.