Mr. Speaker, the NDP supports families and victims of violence. In the past, many of us have worked with victims of violence who have gone to groups. It is important to increase funding to help those people. We are 100% for that approach.
Obviously, removing judicial discretion poses a problem. The problem, as rightly stated before, is this: if you are caught speeding—which has nothing to do with the problem at hand—you receive the same fine, whether you earn $300 a week working in a convenience store or $1 million a year. A judge with discretionary power would be able to step in.
The hon. member for Charlottetown has done a fine job of demonstrating that the poorest are affected. We know that, in our prisons, we often find the poorest in society, because they have a lot of problems, such as dropping out of school. The poorest members in our society will get higher penalties, because judges will no longer have the discretionary power to reduce the penalty.
Does the hon. member not think that the cycle of poverty will become bigger and that those people will be trapped in a vicious circle from which they will not be able to escape?