Mr. Speaker, we have a need to review all previous commitments, particularly ones that were started by the federal government. As the Member knows, the assistance to victims program was started by the federal government some years ago. They provided all the funding. The federal government has now long since left and is no longer providing any funding.
The number of people who are turning to this program is escalating. That is, the potential liability of the program is going to increase substantially over the next few years. In light of the fiscal outlook of this government, it was one of the areas that I recommended and put forward as a reduction for future government. But it appears that the initiatives we have under community justice, under community transfer initiatives and under the community wellness strategy, are all elements that we had thought would be positive elements that would alleviate the amount of social problems, the amount of crime committed and lend itself to alleviate the need for these types of programs.
As well, we had visited the question of whether the state is responsible for victims of crime. That is a very difficult, philosophical question to address. It is a question that all of us have to address before we get into the fundamentals of this program.
At this time, it's still on the books so we will be doing a review in Cabinet as to whether we will proceed with this at this time. Thank you.