Mr. Speaker, as the member for Eglinton—Lawrence indicated, this is an unusual set of circumstances. The member is quite right that this was apparently discussed by the Attorney General and his provincial counterparts previously and that there was an agreement made to do nothing. Then the incident with Mr. Chen arose and, of course, there was an overwhelming national outcry about his being sanctioned. It makes one wonder why the police officers or the crown prosecutors did not have the wisdom to see where this would lead and head it off at the pass. That, unfortunately, did not matter.
The member's question deals with restitution. I will leave that to the committee as it is a complicated area. It gets into whose responsibility is it. Is it Ottawa's or the provinces? We do not know all of the facts now, but I know Mr. Chen incurred substantial bills. The Canadian public certainly sympathizes with him and I believe it wants to see him get restitution, but we should leave that to the committee and let it have a full hearing on this very interesting and important issue.