Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to settle the issue raised by my colleague with regard to my crossing the floor. First of all, my mother would refuse to speak to me if I were to do that. I became a New Democrat member of Parliament not by crossing the floor of the House of Commons, but by giving the matter serious and thorough consideration at a time when I was not a member of this House. This is a very different thing from crossing the floor of the House. My mother simply said that she would accept my decision, although she did say that she would disown me if I ever decided to join the Conservatives. I understood what she meant. That will not happen. There is no problem in that regard.
What I thought was the best thing about the bill, which does not have many clauses, was the title. I am joking with my colleague from Kitchener Centre.
In my opinion, it is high time that the surcharges were increased, because they have been at the same level for a number of years. Despite the fact that the bill eliminates the judge's discretion to not impose the victim surcharge on an offender who can prove that he is unable to pay, it does make offenders eligible for fine option programs, something it did not do before.
The judge's discretion has been removed, but access to fine option programs makes the victim surcharge subject to existing provincial and territorial legislation. If this had not been the case, we would have found it impossible to support the bill. With the implementation of this kind of measure, together with the ruling in R. v. Wu, I would be extremely surprised if anyone who is unable to pay the victim surcharge finds himself in jail.