Mr. Speaker, I am encouraged by the number of members now showing up to listen to my speech. I thank the members for the compliments on the speech. One hon. member said that he was suffering from insomnia. I guess it is better to suffer from insomnia than to fall asleep on the job. I thank him for his attention.
It is disturbing to know the enormous expense that comes with the bill. The Minister of Justice and the Prime Minister have from time to time said so what, that is the nature of the Constitution. They say that they have the responsibility for passing the criminal law and that the provinces have the responsibility for the administration of justice. If that is their constitutional responsibility, they say that they are prepared to let them take their responsibility and they will take theirs. However, that belies the nature of our Confederation. We have a country that depends on federal-provincial co-operation, or at least respect, at least consultation on matters like the cost.
The minister talked about how the government consulted. I do not deny that some provinces sought some of the measures that are in the bill but there is not unanimity among the provinces on the bill. Some are opposed and some are in favour. However, I think all are concerned that they would need to bear some of the additional costs that are associated with the bill.
The minister says that the government has increased its contributions to the provinces through transfer payments in the last year or so but they were not increased specifically to deal with this proposed legislation. There was no consultation on the cost of it. The Government of Canada did not say that it had some changes that would cost a considerable amount of money for some provinces in terms of additional incarceration costs. The provinces would need to build more prisons to keep more people housed in jails and that would cost some money. However, the federal government did not make the provinces aware of that. It did not give them an implementation schedule or say that it was prepared to consider ameliorating some of that cost. We did not hear that.
What we hear is that the government does not even know the costs. It is not even going to look at what the costs would be. It is not going to consult on the burden of the costs. It is just going to go ahead and say that it is the federal government's job to pass criminal law and that it is the provinces job to pay the costs of incarcerating people, the prosecutorial costs, the legal aid that is generated by the new provisions and the extra amount of trials that there would be to deal with the mandatory minimums. That would all fall on the heads of the provinces and the federal government would let them look after it because, after all, it is their constitutional responsibility.
There is a nice intellectual argument that, yes, we can divide sections 92(a) and 92(b) in the Constitution, but the reality is that the Confederation of Canada involves a partnership and that partnership needs to be respected. The dignity and role of the provinces must be acknowledged and respected in terms of that imposition. I used the term “downloading” once and someone suggested that was wrong because the provinces had those responsibilities in the first place. However, if it is not downloading, it is creating new costs for the provinces that are not there now. The federal government is creating these costs because it would increase the number of people who end up in jail.
Someone opposite said that all the government was trying to do was put criminals in jail. If that is all it is trying to do, I could still argue on how long offenders will be put in jail. We could argue about whether jail was the best place for some of them or whether a rehabilitation program would make our communities safer. The assumption from members opposite seems to be just to put criminals in jail.
If the members on that side just want to put criminals in jail and want us to agree with them, that would not be much of a debate because that is not our responsibility as members of Parliament. Our responsibility is to examine the laws to see whether they will actually work and whether this is a bill to make streets safer or a bill that will result in more crimes, more criminals and more victims. That is our concern about the other side.