Mr. Lewis, what I can say is that the courts don't just have this ceiling that, once it's breached, is an automatic violation of somebody's charter rights. We have to look at the reason why this ceiling was breached. If the case takes too long, we look at why it took too long.
As Mr. Virani said in the last panel, [Technical difficulty—Editor] the court [Technical difficulty—Editor] exceptional circumstances or discrete exceptional events. Things like the pandemic are simply subtracted from the delay assessment. It's as if no delay occurred where the delay that happened because the courts have been shut down is attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic.
I suppose we can assume, as you are, that everyone is going to fight their case or that everyone goes to trial. We simply know that this isn't the case. We know that some people will go to trial. Some of these offences aren't the types that would clog up the criminal court system. They are what we call provincial offences. They are things like traffic tickets and parking tickets. Again, the sky isn't falling here. We have a situation here where the courts have come up with some great ideas to remedy these problems in the short term. We've offered to you some solutions in the long term, finding ways to get some of these cases that just don't need to be there out of the court system. There are lots of other solutions to come up with.
I don't think we need to worry about simply having these fines being simply dismissed because they've taken too long to come to trial. I think the courts are going to account for the delay, and the reasons behind the delay, in assessing whether any of these cases should be thrown out or simply dismissed.