Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Toronto—Danforth for his comments. Bringing this back to the families and the victims who are impacted by crime brings home to all Canadians the importance of getting this type of legislation right.
Families that have gone through losing a family member in particular have been deeply hurt and victimized. Some of those families get through and deal with that grief and then become advocates to try to make the system better for future victims. I do not know if there is any effort made by citizens in this country that is more admirable in that they have had to deal with their personal loss while advocating for better public policy.
My question is very specific and is about what the bill lacks, because I think this is a missed opportunity in some ways. It is not as if we will revisit this type of legislation every year. It has been eight years since the promise from the Conservatives to bring forward this legislation. We finally have it now, so getting it right seems important.
My question is about resources, because we have heard from victims groups before that to properly incorporate victims into the justice system, there needs to be the ability to fund the types of services they will need: the counselling, the access to legal advocacy, and the ability to be in the court system properly.
My friend is a learned scholar and knows the legal system well. A piece of legislation like this, for all its good intentions, without any financial support in it, is worrisome to me in terms of what experience those families will have in the future as they try to approach the justice system and redress some of the faults within our criminal justice system as they exist right now.