Thank you.
First of all, I apologize for having missed the first part of your presentations, but there was a debate in the House on the security certificates. From time to time the committee sits while we are dealing with bills for which that committee or a related committee is responsible.
The Bloc Québécois caucus recognizes the superiority of Mr. Holland's bill in terms of definition and scope. There is no doubt that the two bills cannot be compared. The discussion must establish a comparison with the status quo. Apparently it is a question of prison terms from six months to five years. There may be restitution orders. The bill defines what it means to inflict cruel treatment causing pain. It seems to us that the bill we are dealing with is not incompatible with Mr. Holland's bill, that we will be studying later on if there are no amendments. The more we listen to witnesses, the more we are convinced that you are asking us to defeat this bill. The two bills are not fundamentally incompatible. If we had to choose between the two, and if we were told that before a certain number of years a single bill would be studied by elected representatives, Mr. Holland's would obviously be far more satisfying. Given the number he has drawn in the House's order of precedence, must we make do with the status quo, or wait for Mr. Holland's bill? Why not take advantage of this intermediate measure that this bill is putting forward, which represents a clear improvement in comparison with the status quo? I am open to all arguments. Perhaps Ms. Freeman and I should be making other arguments to our caucus, but we believe that we should vote in favour of this bill, which is not incompatible with Mr. Holland's, and, ultimately, we should adopt his bill.
I find that that is not the perspective of the people who have been appearing before the committee for the last few days. I will begin with you, Ms. Elmslie. Are you happy with our strategy or would you invite us to abandon it?