Mr. Speaker, I would like to turn the issue to the question of costs and budgeting in this budget. The member is a former RCMP officer and I commend him for his 20 years of service in a difficult profession.
I want to talk to him about crime bills, and I am sure he has some good insight in this regard. For the first time in commonwealth history, a government has been found in contempt for not providing costs with respect to crime bills.
The government is very fond of mandatory minimums. We heard another private member's bill today on mandatory minimums. I think the member knows the connection between mental health, substance abuse, poverty and crime. California, Texas and other states that have been driving the mandatory minimum agenda are now backing away rapidly from it. In the case of California, mandatory minimums have often been described as one of the most expensive costs that the state has to bear and they are really pulling the state down. Mandatory minimums do not work.
With this explosion of mandatory minimum offences now being brought to bear in the Criminal Code, could he help Canadians understand how much money in this budget has been earmarked for transfer to the provinces to assist them with what will likely and inevitably be a very large increase in the number of incarcerated Canadians?