Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague, my friend from Mount Royal, for a very thoughtful, constructive speech. He has raised some very important points.
Embedded in his remarks is the reality that this will be an incremental effort. He has also alluded to the fact that this, like many initiatives, will build on previous efforts and build on existing provincial-territorial infrastructure when it comes to victims. It is the living tree analogy.
The member also embodies my own sentiment, and that is that we should not let the perfect get in the way of the good. What we are attempting to do here for victims is a very important non-partisan effort.
In the brief time I have, I want to respond quickly to a couple of concerns about existing mechanisms.
There are resources. There has been a commitment made in the federal budget with respect to the necessity to improve upon existing mechanisms at the provincial and territorial level. We do not want to duplicate the effort where we do, in fact, have some of those mechanisms in place already.
We have also heard from a lot of victims about the necessity of trying to help them collect, as the member alluded to, with respect to restitution. That dovetails with other efforts we have put in place with respect to mandatory and doubled victim fine surcharges.
As well, with respect to examining, I know that the member himself is very much an internationalist in his view. We have looked outside of the country as well when it came to the enforcement mechanisms. We have looked to the United Kingdom, the United States, of course, Japan, and the European Union as to ways in which we could include the right to information, financial redress, and attendance at court proceedings. We found that very instructive.
We have also benefited from input from the Office of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime, who will provide some of the recourse and the redress to which the member alluded. If there are failings within the provincial and territorial system, we will look to that federal ombudsman's office to assist victims in trying to alleviate their concerns.