Mr. Speaker, the issue of costing would impact not only on the provinces which, in the case of the Province of Quebec, have rejected the principles of this legislation such as in the matter of the youth criminal justice legislation. The provinces would be assuming costs of legislation that they did not agree to. They would not even know what the costs would be because the government has yet to disclose these costs. We know, with respect to the matter of conditional sentencing, there would be an additional $137 million imposed on the provinces with respect to this one piece of legislation alone. It would not only impose a burden on the provinces, it would impose a burden, as I discussed yesterday with the Canadian Association of Police Boards, on the municipalities which have not even been involved in this discussion and debate.
And it would impose a particular burden on us as parliamentarians. We have a constitutional responsibility to be the guardians of the public purse. We cannot be the guardians of the public purse, trustees of the public, if we do not even know what the cost of this legislation would be. Therefore, we cannot exercise our responsibility for constitutional oversight.