Justice committee  Thank you. In the past, exceptional circumstances were generally emergency situations for victims resulting from criminal victimization where there was no other source of funds. To a large extent quite often these were either situations abroad or situations in the north where be

Justice committee  I can only speak to those CACs we're involved in funding. The federal government has enhanced funding for four existing centres and has provided funding to develop 11 new ones. In total, 15 are receiving funding from the federal government.

Justice committee  The 11 new ones.

Justice committee  It is actually $1.4 million, and of that, $1 million is dedicated to create or enhance the CACs.

Justice committee  I don't have the provision in front of me, so I'll be answering purely on my memory of the provision that you refer to, which is an existing provision of the Criminal Code. That provision was put in for the purposes of ensuring that a person would not have a bogus acquittal or a

Justice committee  It is very much a judgment call on the part of a crown attorney to look at the situation. It really becomes, to use the comment, a smell test first. Does something smell fishy here, something that is not proper? However, the real determination is the court, because the court ha

Justice committee  There were 40-something offences that had mandatory minimum penalties, I believe, prior—

Justice committee  Yes.

Justice committee  That's correct.

Justice committee  Correct.

Justice committee  That's correct.

Justice committee  I can answer that. I think what the minister was saying wasn't on the specific intent. Some of the treaties require that we criminalize the import or export simpliciter of certain material. What the minister said is that we already have legislation that does that. For example,

Justice committee  No. There's a maximum, which is life. It's really up to the courts, depending on the circumstances of the case and the circumstance of the offender, to fix an appropriate sentence.

Justice committee  That's what they get paid for.

Justice committee  Bindings of other tribunals are not binding on Canadian courts. Canadian courts are sovereign. They determine the applicability of Canadian law, depending on domestic law. They will look at international judgments, or even judgments of other courts in other countries, for guida