Justice committee  That sounds great, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much. First of all, thanks for the opportunity to do this. I'm here today in the hope that I can share with you maybe two unique perspectives in one presentation on Bill C-4, as well as share a little bit about the New Brunswick exper

Justice committee  Mr. Murphy, I'll start there. The estimates from our department would be that, likely, if you look at the entire range of reforms to the law that would require increased incarceration, a province the size of New Brunswick is looking at about $10 million to $15 million annually in

Justice committee  No. Now, I cannot speak for all attorneys general, and in fairness to Minister Nicholson, there have been round tables. I have not seen any summary released of the overall advice. I would say this: on some of the common-sense Nunn recommendations—for instance, clearing up pretri

Justice committee  What we are looking at is largely recidivism, broadly defined as committing other crimes. Frankly, we have seen a decrease in youth crime across all levels, from property crimes through to violent offences, which is why I say, to us, tough on crime isn't what we do after somebody

Justice committee  It was about $280,000 annually. It allowed us--there are other programs like it in New Brunswick--to identify a young person who was showing the indicators of being at risk, whether it was high amounts of discipline problems in school, abuse or neglect or a complicated file at ho

Justice committee  There are indeed many similarities between the two systems, Mr. Ménard. I can't talk about the origins of this program, but we certainly do have a great deal in common.

Justice committee  Most certainly. If the bill passes, then in some respects, the federal government would be adopting an across-the-board approach. That would mean a province, in this case, New Brunswick, would be required to use its resources as the federal government sees fit, not based on its o

Justice committee  A roundtable was held with the attorneys general and justice ministers of each province and territory, and that included Mr. Nicholson. I did not meet with him personally, but as I recall, there were no one-on-one meetings. Perhaps the representatives of the other provinces met w

Justice committee  If memory serves me well, the roundtable that I attended in New Brunswick—there may have been others—lasted approximately six hours.

Justice committee  Yes, one day.

Justice committee  That's correct. The provincial attorneys general are unanimous on some points, for example, on the issue of pre-trial custody. The legal angle is clearer. The act works well with these changes. We are able to assume our provincial responsibilities for social services and youths a

Justice committee  That is one of the problems. For example, it is a problem when an attorney general wants to give clear instructions to crown prosecutors. The problem lies in the fact that the aim of the proposed legislation is not clear. Consider, for example, the fact that the aim of the act,

Justice committee  No. To be clear, we based our analysis on the suite of legislation that I will generally call amendments to sentencing and crime. While I think the amounts would be roughly equal for each, I wouldn't want us to put that on the record yet.

Justice committee  No. Together they will.

Justice committee  No. Ours is based simply on detention and incarceration. If it is intended to be an unfunded mandate, that would be extra.