I have a point of order first, Mr. Chair. I think both the official opposition representative and myself at the last meeting just as we were closing, and it was closed rather quickly, were seriously suggesting that we should not go to clause-by-clause today. We're not ready to go to clause-by-clause. What is the rush, Mr. Chair? The fact of the matter is, this impacts the Parole Board. We haven't heard from the Parole Board. I see now we have a letter saying they couldn't come on February 25. Could they come another day? I don't know. I can't tell from the letter. I can't tell whether the Minister might have intervened. But if we're going to do our job in terms of looking at legislation properly, then the body that is most affected by this bill is in fact the Parole Board. We need some answers from them, Mr. Chair. If they're not willing to come in their own right, I would suggest we as a committee should subpoena them.
I know there are about eight amendments here from the government, which is an indication to me I expect the Department of Justice intervened on a private member's bill that has a lot of risks in it in terms of jeopardizing the Criminal Code, so the justice department is probably trying to clean it up. That's a good thing. But I really do not believe we're doing our job as a committee if we do not hear from the Parole Board before we do this clause-by-clause.
If you listened to the witnesses, the last witnesses, one of the things that was suggested the other day, there were quite a number of suggested amendments from the witnesses... I've got the blues, but we certainly didn't have time to prepare amendments based on those suggestions. We did have comments from two of the witnesses suggesting that this bill, as currently drafted—and I do think some of the government amendments will cure this problem, actually—could actually jeopardize, and those weren't their words, but that's what they meant, jeopardize public safety because people would get out on parole without proper hearings and they would not have the proper easing into society.
There are some real, severe implications here on public safety, and we need to hear from the Parole Board. That's my position.