Bill C-35 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Criminal Code (reverse onus in bail hearings for firearm-related offences)

This enactment amends the Criminal Code to provide that the accused will be required to demonstrate, when charged with certain serious offences involving firearms or other regulated weapons, that pre-trial detention is not justified in their case and to introduce additional factors relating to firearm offences that the courts must take into account in deciding whether an accused should be released or detained pending trial.

Criminal Code

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite said that if a new Liberal government were prepared to do all of these things, why did it not do it when it was in power? Let me talk about some of the things the previous Liberal government members did when we were in office.

The previous Liberal government brought in the national strategy on crime prevention, which directed moneys into local communities that needed to work with their youth at risk and to ensure better levels of security. They were able to coordinate with the local law enforcement, community police officers, the health organizations and the schools to bring down to the grassroots real effective programs to ensure we had lower crime rates. That is an example of what a previous Liberal government did.

The previous Liberal government brought into being the dangerous offenders system. It was not a Progressive Conservative government, it was the Liberal government. It was a Liberal government that brought into existence the long term offender system. It was a Liberal government that recognized minimum mandatory penalties in very targeted areas could send a clear message and could be effective in the sense of removing the offender from the community and ensuring that the victim and the community were not re-victimized.

We are the ones who brought in minimum mandatory penalties for firearm related criminal acts. It was not a Conservative government. It was not a Progressive Conservative government. It was a Liberal government that brought into effect integrated law enforcement teams. Whether it was for the border enforcement, or for financial money laundering, or for whatever, it was a Liberal government that brought those into effect.

It was a Liberal government that brought into effect all the new provisions, which are no longer new, to the Criminal Code to create the ability for law enforcement to seize drug money and to define a criminal organization and organized crime.

The Liberal government did all of that.

I believe the member opposite should go back to the school benches, learn the actual history and cease taking the rhetoric and sloganeering of his party, which has tried to paint Liberals as not being tough on crime. Tough on crime does not do it. The supreme court of the United States of America recently ruled that its determinant sentencing, under the American federal sentencing guidelines, what it calls mandatory minimum penalties, was unconstitutional and should be used as an advisory only. In other words, in the United States federal mandatory minimum sentencing is considered to be unconstitutional and should only be used as a guideline.

I am appalled that the Conservative government would want to take a failed model, which is the escalating minimum mandatory sentence system that existed in virtually all of the states in the United States and for which 25 of the states since 2003 have eliminated or severely reduced, and impose it here in Canada.

Effective justice is not sloganeering. Effective justice is not retail politics. Effective justice means taking the time to educate people. It means putting the taxpayer money where it will reduce crime. It is not pandering. The Conservative government panders and it conducts retail politics. It is not too lofty for the government to stoop to the most base accusations, disinformation, untruths in its quest to try to portray itself as being tough on crime.

Being tough on crime means taking the effective measures that will actually make a difference on the ground. We had expert after expert come before the justice committee, whether it was on Bill C-35, or other bills, which the government has lauded to try to make Canadians believe they will make them safer. The experts have said that they could not really oppose them because it would not make any difference.

The de facto reality is that it already happens. Whether it be reverse onus for bail for gun related crimes, it already happens. If one is accused of a criminal offence and a firearm is involved, judges do not give bail. Therefore, we would simply be codifying an actual de facto practice.

That is one of the reasons why the Liberals are able to support Bill C-35, but we are unable to support Bill C-10. It is not effective justice. It is retail politics, and shame on the NDP for supporting it.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Do you not have the impression that the problem lies in the fact that this government does not have confidence in its judges? If it had confidence in the judges' ability to weigh the facts, to tailor each decision to the individual and to satisfactorily assess the seriousness of each offence and decide on the appropriate course of action...

The root of the problem, that started with Bill C-9, continued in BiIl C-10 and is now found again in Bill C-35, is that this government, its Minister of Justice and its Prime Minister, do not have confidence in the judiciary. Does that not make you a little sad?

[Isabel Schurman]

Thank you for the invitation to address you here today.

For those of you who don't know my background, I would presume the reason I've been invited is the 23 years of criminal law practice, the fact that I teach criminal law part-time at McGill University's Faculty of Law, and that I have been heavily involved over the years with the Canadian Bar Association, which represents both prosecutors and defence counsel across the country, as well as being involved with various defence organizations.

I hope that perhaps these representations may be of some help to you.

The problem with the proposed law is not that it's going to change criminal law in Canada irreversibly. The problem is that it will change nothing in the day-to-day reality that we live now.

From the practitioner's perspective, if the law passes, there are compelling reasons to believe there will not be one more person detained tomorrow who would not have been detained today, because the reality is that bail is not being given for serious violent offences.

The reality is that Crowns are not having trouble meeting their burden to show why someone should not be freed on bail. The reality is that bail is a fact-driven process and judges are the best people to evaluate the evidence before them.

The reality is that Canadians don't like firearms. Canadians don't like firearms unless they're hunting rifles on hunting territory in hunting season.

The reality is that judges, prosecutors, and defence lawyers are just ordinary Canadians, like all of you, with elderly parents, with small children, with all the same safety concerns as other Canadians.

The reality is that when a firearm shows up in the evidence, the Crowns don't like it, the judges don't like it, and the defence counsel don't like it. Through my contacts with Canadian Bar Association members and various defence organizations, I verified that what is the case in Montreal is also the case elsewhere in the country. If a firearm shows up at the stage of a bail hearing in the evidence the Crown possesses, the judge will generally look to defence counsel or the defendant and say, “Well, what have you got to say?” It's a kind of de facto reverse onus, because Canadians don't like firearms. And we can't be compared to our American counterparts when it comes to firearms, because for our American counterparts the right to bear those arms is constitutional. We simply don't like them.

So three questions come up when looking at this proposed legislation. If on the street bail is not being given easily for these offences, then why are we changing the code? Will the changes improve the code, or create confusion and lead to arguments of arbitrariness? And will the changes achieve the goal of making Canada safer, a goal with which we are all in agreement?

On the first question, why change the code, you have an excellent brief that's been submitted to you by the Canadian Bar Association in writing on May 9, 2007. That brief explains that perhaps we shouldn't be changing the Canadian Criminal Code unless there is a gap or a deficiency that we wish to remedy. That brief asks you, where is the gap or deficiency that Bill C-35 is intended to address?

The present law gives judges ample room to refuse bail when society is in danger. Even when the Crown does have the burden in the present system, the Crown is having no trouble meeting that burden.

So the second question I ask is, will the changes improve the Criminal Code? Before dealing with that, you have to know and ask, what is a reverse onus anyway? A reverse onus is an exception to a rule. Bail is constitutionally guaranteed. No one should be denied reasonable bail without just cause. Bail is the rule. The Crown must show cause why the person should remain detained.

Reverse onuses used to be restricted to those who had failed to show, who had breached conditions, etc., and also, traditionally, for most serious offences--murder--all listed in section 469 of the Criminal Code. Over the last few years, reverse onus in bail matters was expanded to include drug trafficking and related offences, some terrorism offences, and security information offences.

The key case in Canadian jurisprudence that dealt with whether or not reverse onuses were constitutional when they were expanded to drug trafficking was the case of Pearson. In the case of Pearson, our Supreme Court said this is really going to apply to a small number of offences, this reverse onus, and there are specific characteristics to these offences--drug trafficking--they're systematic, they're sophisticated, they're commercial, they're lucrative, and that incites people to keep going even once they've been arrested and released on bail. Because of these qualifications or characteristics of the crime, the Supreme Court decided that the reverse onus was constitutional because there was a need to discourage repetition and because there was a marked danger the accused would abscond, because importers and traffickers have organizations and means to help them abscond. But the Supreme Court of Canada said the reverse onus is only going to be okay if it's not arbitrary, if it's not purely discretionary--and I'd like you to keep that in mind for a moment, because we might just take a peek at the Criminal Code in a moment.

The Supreme Court also had difficulty with the fact that the reverse onus for drug trafficking took into its net the small fry, the little traffickers. Justice McLachlin, dissenting in Pearson, would have struck it down for that very reason, because it made the exception too large.

So now, to the second question: will this addition improve the Criminal Code? Will it withstand constitutional challenge? More particularly, in terms of Pearson, will it be arbitrary or not? Looking at the text of the proposed law, we see that the law proposes to amend paragraph 515(6)(a) to include offences under section 99, 100, or 103 of the Criminal Code.

If we look at 99, that's an offence of weapons trafficking. Weapons trafficking, as defined in that section, includes much more than firearms. It includes a whole series of weapons that are not firearms. So there would be a reverse onus, for example, for trafficking in brass knuckles, which are a restricted weapon in Canada, but there would be no reverse onus under article 102 for assembling an automatic firearm. There would be no reverse onus for carrying a concealed weapon, for pointing a firearm, for possession of a firearm for a purpose dangerous to public peace. Would the courts say this is arbitrary?

There would be, according to this proposed legislation, a reverse onus for assault causing bodily harm with a firearm, but there would be no reverse onus for a section 268 aggravated assault with a machete. There would be a reverse onus for a section 239 attempted murder with a firearm, but no reverse onus for criminal negligence or manslaughter with a firearm. In addition, section 239, attempted murder, would only imply reverse onus if it was with a firearm, but if there's a reverse onus for a firearm, could not an attempted murder be just as brutal with any one of a number of other weapons that we see on the streets today?

Sexual assault and aggravated sexual assault--these are interesting ones, 272, 273. The reverse onus would be when the weapon used to commit the sexual assault or aggravated sexual assault is a firearm. Sexual assault or aggravated sexual assault with any other weapon would not bring the reverse onus.

Using a weapon to coerce children into prostitution--would the courts say this looks arbitrary? Would it withstand constitutional challenge?

There's a reversal of the onus for kidnapping, but not for forcible confinement. You may say that's okay; there's a reversal of the onus for hostage taking, but not all forcible confinement is hostage taking. Anyone practising in criminal defence law knows the number of domestic violence incidents that imply or include at least one count of forcible confinement.

Robbery--again, is it potentially arbitrary to say there would be a reverse onus but only if the robbery is with a firearm? I come back to my machete example.

Extortion with a firearm...what about extortion with a bomb threat?

In light of all of these sections, what are we doing about breaking and entering a private home in the context of a home invasion with a firearm? That doesn't include a reversal. Would a court be swayed by defence arguments that these are arbitrary? Would we meet the Pearson test? I'm not sure that we would.

There's a very logical connection between subsection 84(1)...that is to say that there should be a reverse onus when the person who is up for the bail hearing has been accused while under a prohibition to possess firearms. That's a very logical connection. It makes a lot of sense. It's not necessary. The judges sitting in bail courts are already saying, “Well, for goodness' sake, you were under a prohibition, why should I give you bail?”

The reality is that bail in violent offences is extremely rare. Even without reverse onus, the courts apply 515(10)(a), (b), and (c) rigorously. They look at risk of flight, they look at guarantees, they look at the strength of the case for the prosecution. The judges do this on a daily basis, based on the evidence before them and because they are concerned with safety in Canada.

Again, if I look at the bill that you have before you, in subclause 1(5), you have a proposed amendment to 515(10)(c), and I draw your attention to (c)(iii), where you would be asking the courts to look at the circumstances surrounding the commission of the offence, including whether a firearm was used. Well, do you know what's going to happen with that? It's not going to be very long before counsel is going to be pleading, “This offence isn't quite as serious the weapon used wasn't a firearm.” This section is going to be turned around.

There is the same potential problem with proposed subparagraph (iv), right after. Taking away the availability of bail because there's a mandatory minimum sentence is dangerous when mandatory minimums apply only to a restricted category of offences that are not necessarily the offences with the highest objective gravity. Bail should be evaluated in light of the objective gravity of the offence and the likelihood of conviction. Without this, the mandatory minimum is meaningless.

Finally, and I terminate on this, will these changes make Canada safer? You had some very interesting and thought-provoking comments by Anthony Doob, who spent a great deal of time on that, and I will not.

I would say, ladies and gentlemen, that there are compelling reasons to believe that it will not result in one more pretrial detention, but more importantly it will not result in one less crime. Will the person about to commit a crime, who reaches for a firearm, say, “Wait a minute, I'd better think about this: if I get arrested, I'm going to have to show cause to get bail, so I'd better not do this”? I'm being facetious, obviously, but this will not produce that kind of effect.

We are concerned about the safety of our society here in Canada, and we need useful changes towards this goal. Studies have indicated for decades that the greatest deterrent is the certainty of apprehension. We should be focusing our creativity, our intellectual and financial resources, on developing solutions there.

What we have here is a piece of legislation that I respectfully submit to you is not necessary and will change nothing. Sooner or later Canadians will say that this wasn't the answer and ask what we should do. We should be identifying the problem that's leading to firearms offences with data, with statistics, and targeting a solution, instead of eating away at constitutional values with incremental changes that risk being judged arbitrary and ineffective.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bernard Patry]

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the ninth meeting of the Legislative Committee on Bill C-35. The committee is meeting pursuant to the Order of Reference of Tuesday, March 27, 2007, to study Bill C-35, an Act to amend the Criminal Code (reverse onus in bail hearings for firearm-related offences).

As a witness appearing as an individual this afternoon, we have Madam Isabel Schurman, who is a lawyer at Schurman Longo Grenier.

Welcome, Ms. Schurman.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bernard Patry]

Yes. We're not changing the room tomorrow. We'll have witnesses tomorrow.

When we come back on Tuesday, we'll go to clause-by-clause for Bill C-35 You'll also receive notice that the minister will appear on June 5 for Bill C-27.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Okay. I misunderstood. I thought you were talking about Bill C-35.

You're talking about continuing the clause-by-clause of Bill C-23, from 4:30 until 5:30 on Wednesday, May 16.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Okay. Thanks.

Once again, I believe the information that you supplied in these tables is useful. I agree that maybe it doesn't apply directly to Bill C-35 , which we're talking about, but I think these are things we need to know.

Also, it suggests that the costs revolving around a victim are difficult to measure in dollars and cents. I've seen what the results of a tragedy in violent crime can do to victims, and it doesn't amount in pennies and dollars; it amounts in a long-term tragic situation.

One witness said that if you commit a crime with a gun, the practice is that you won't get out on bail. But I have talked to police officers personally, and they know of several who have been released on bail. They know of them, and I happen to know of some. So if you talk to the people who make the arrests, they know pretty well what goes on in these things. Yes, it is happening, and so I think the legislation is necessary.

I also have a private member's bill to include all violent crimes, not just guns. I want knives and everything to be included. I've also been told there would be a fairly good chance that the bill would not pass the charter test. I find it very amazing to be told that, but I have been told that.

But what I want to point out is, once again, the one statistic we have is that a person has committed a violent crime with a gun. That person is under arrest and in jail. He has shown that he's capable of doing that very crime. You don't take a chance. You simply don't take a chance. It's just like a dog; if he bites, you leash him up. You don't take a chance that he'll bite again, because he might. He might not, but you don't take the chance.

I'm just wondering if you agree that this would simply be a statistic that indicates, yes, you've been arrested and charged with committing this crime, you've done it once, and that's enough for me. I know some of my colleagues over there would think that's ridiculous, but I'm sorry, once is good enough for me. That person won't get another gun if I can help it.

I wonder if you agree with that scenario.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Thank you very much for your presentation.

We had Professor Anthony Doob here, a criminologist from, I believe, the Toronto area. Basically what he said was something some of my colleagues on this table stated, which is that the criminal defence lawyers are coming and telling us that they don't really have an objection in principle to Bill C-35, because in actual reality, as we speak now, if someone commits a criminal act, is charged with committing a criminal act with the use of a firearm, they do not get bail. So Bill C-35 would in fact not change anything; it would simply codify an existing practice.

[Professor Gary Mauser, Criminologist, Simon Fraser University, As an Individual]

Okay, thank you very much.

I have a few words to say as a preface and then I will walk the committee through the tables that I had cause to be distributed. I think I know many of you, but just in case my face is fleeting, I would like to give you a few key facets of my background so you will know a bit about who I am.

As said, I am a professor at Simon Fraser University in both the Institute for Canadian Urban Research Studies, which is in criminology, as well as in the faculty of business administration. My doctoral training was in social psychology and quantitative methods, and I have researched and published in criminology, mostly in the area of firearms and violence, for more than 15 years.

I appear before you today because I support Bill C-35. I believe it is a step in the right direction towards improving the safety of Canadians--a small step, possibly, but I think a positive one.

Despite my support for Bill C-35, I have a few reservations, and I'd like to outline them.

First, in my view, the focus should be serious violent crime, not merely gun crime. I say this for two reasons. Violent crime involving firearms is only a small fraction of serious violent crime, and second, knife-wielding criminals cause more and more serious injuries to their victims than do criminals with firearms.

To illustrate the small fraction of violent crime that constitutes firearms, only 3% of crimes classified as violent crimes involve firearms. A much smaller percentage than 3%, typically around 1%, consists of victims injured by firearms. One-third of homicides involve firearms, and about one-third, knives. Also, 15% of robberies are with firearms. So as you can see, firearms are not the only serious item used in violent crime.

To look at the claims about knife injuries, I urge you to look at tables 1 and 2--I trust this has been distributed. Here in table 1 we look at assault victims; table 2 looks at robbery victims.

So let us look at table 1. In the first line we see that 6% of the victims injured by firearms are injured seriously, while 11% of victims injured by knives are injured seriously, that is to say, Statistics Canada classifies those as major physical injuries.

These data were generated by a special request to StatsCan, so they went through their annual data. I did this in 2004, so the data are from 2003. I don't doubt, but haven't done it, that if we do the similar studies for 2004, 2005, other years, we will get approximately the same kind of distribution.

The second point about table 1 is no reported injuries. Over 50% of victims injured with firearms had no reported injuries, so an injury that is non-existent--this is StatsCan. Equally, in knife injuries, 47% of incidents received no injuries. In other words, victims attacked with knives were much more likely to have an injury--and if an injury, a serious injury--as opposed to guns. This is in assaults.

You get similar kinds of things with robbery victims. In 2% of incidents involving firearms, the victims had major physical injuries, compared to 3% of victims who were robbed by a knife-wielding person.

Similarly, with incidents involving no injuries, 80% were with firearms as opposed to 83% with knifes. This is not to say that firearms are not dangerous; this is merely to say that knives are serious weapons, and Parliament might well be advised to look at knife-wielding criminals as well as gun-wielding criminals.

In tables 3 and 4 are some of the few statistics available on criminals who have been released from prison. In table 3 we look at statutory release and see that over 40% of the prisoners released on statutory release find their release revoked for either breach of condition or commission of a crime. About 3% are violent crimes.

So this goes to the argument that we have some data. The data are very scarce so we do not have very convincing or thorough data, but this is the best of what we have. Whether you classify this as a glass half full or glass half empty, if we look at this as a threat to the Canadian public we can see that 40% of the prisoners released cannot be trusted and are back in jail soon. That causes danger to the Canadian public.

In table 4 we have some data that look at recidivism. Depending on the last crime for which the person was imprisoned, from breaking and entering down to drugs, somewhere between 30% and over 63% of these released prisoners reoffend within three years. There's no information available on the percentage who reoffend if we look at a longer period of five to ten years. The argument here is basically that while it costs money and it costs the freedom of some people, keeping serious offenders in jail protects the public.

Next we look at the cost of crimes borne by the victims. We're not looking at policing costs, court costs, or correctional costs--none of the costs borne by government; merely the costs borne by citizens who have had crimes committed against them.

There are two dimensions to tables 5 and 6. The first is the number of crimes. We have two ways to estimate the number of crimes, and neither one is very good, but they'e different and give you a range of estimates.

One way to estimate the number of crimes committed is by the crimes known to police. In 1996 when this study was published, there were 254,000 crimes known to police that fell into the violent crime category. In 2005, the most recent year that annual statistics are available from StatsCan, we have over 300,000.

The other way of looking at how many crimes are being committed is to do surveys. We have several types of surveys, but perhaps the best we have conducted in Canada involved asking people to report to them on a regular basis. Rather than showing 254,000 violent crimes, this shows about two million. Typically the police know about only a small percentage of the total crimes committed.

We believe the crimes that police know about tend to be the more serious of the crimes committed, but this is not always the case. Since we don't know much about the ones that we don't about, this is an unknown unknown.

The second dimension, and much more problematic, is how do we estimate the costs that victims bear when assaulted, robbed, raped, or killed? This is very difficult. What I have tried to do here is look at victim interviews where victims report what costs they incurred. I have limited my estimates to financial costs, by and large, and I've tried to make minimum estimates for these. Still, it's very problematic—I freely admit that—but it's just the best available.

If any of you have ever been involved in a violent crime—not as a perpetrator, I assume, but as a victim—you know there are many subtle emotional costs. People will not go back into their apartment after it has been burglarized. People will not go to certain areas where they've been attacked or even suspected an attack. There are strong psychological costs for violent or property crimes.

I have tried not to make any estimates of these, although I do have a quote from Welsh and Waller, where they did try to estimate the impact of what they called “shattered lives”. As you can see in the third line up from the bottom on table 6, this is a fairly substantial estimate.

Essentially what we have here is the cost that average citizens bear for crime: we have estimated, in 1996, $4.6 billion as the cost that Canadian citizens bear—not the government, but the citizens—for property crime, and over $700 million for violent crime. These are minimum estimates. I'm sure that, as in many variables in criminology, the better the research the bigger the number, whether it's marijuana smokers, crime, costs, or victims. I have tried very hard here to give minimum numbers.

In table 6, we have specifically broken things out in more detail, so you can see the various component rather than just the total of violent or property crimes. You can see direct monetary losses, productivity losses, hospitalization costs, and of course, the more subjective “shattered lives”.

Let me conclude by saying, first of all, I have a sheet of references so that you can look up and verify my claims. For example, the Welsh and Waller references are there, various Statistics Canada documents, as well as econometric studies that are illuminating.

In conclusion, I support this legislation because I believe its aim is correct: minimizing human suffering. The research shows that keeping violent criminals in jail protects the public through simple incapacitation. I've tried to outline the costs the public bears so you can get a more gritty feeling of what these costs might be.

However, I feel that by focusing exclusively on guns, Parliament may not be dealing with violent crime as effectively as it might. As I'm sure you know, good legislation requires more than merely reacting to media events. Guns are big in the news; knives are not. That may not be a good representation of what is actually out there causing the problems.

I'm sure we all know the dog-bites-man argument of how things get into the news. Airplane crashes make more news than automobile crashes, and many more Canadians die in traffic accidents than airline crashes. So I urge you to consider knives. This may be peripheral and passed over. I appreciate that.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bernard Patry]

Good afternoon. It's the Legislative Committee on Bill C-35, meeting number 8, and these are the orders of the day. Pursuant to the order of reference of Tuesday, March 27, 2007, we are going to be considering Bill C-35, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (reverse onus in bail hearings for firearm-related offences).

As a witness this afternoon we have Mr. Gary Mauser, who's a criminologist from Simon Fraser University.

Welcome, Mr. Mauser. We're waiting for your presentation, please.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bernard Patry]

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to this meeting of the Legislative Committee on BillC-35.

It's an act to amend the Criminal Code in regard to reverse onus in bail hearings for firearm-related offences. This is meeting number seven.

Our witness today is from the Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers, Mr. William M. Trudell, the chair.

Welcome, Mr. Trudell. The floor is yours for your presentation, and after that we will have questions and answers in a seven-minute round.

Go ahead, please.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

I have one comment on that. That would be subject to Bill C-35 running that course, and also subject to that justice—If that justice committee meeting, for whatever reason by the time May 30 rolls around, is not on May 30, I would think where justice normally meets 9 to 11 Tuesdays and Thursdays, that we might be able to start. Barring something unforeseen happening, I'm in agreement with that.

Are we deciding right now on the time being...? The suggestion is there for Wednesday--is that the suggestion, at 3:30?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bernard Patry]

Does everyone agree with the comments from Ms. Jennings that we are going to start Bill C-27 after we finish Bill C-35, and that we feel we're going to finish by Tuesday, May 29, and on May 30 there will be no committee because justice has a meeting on Wednesday afternoon on May 30?

Yes, Mr. Moore.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

If i understand correctly, Mr. Ménard is moving that our committee not start its meetings on Bill C-27 until the legislative committee on Bill C-35 has completed its proceedings. As we have decided to meet normally on Tuesdays and Wednesday afternoons, theoretically, the first committee meeting would be held on June 5, at 3:30 p.m. There would also be another meeting on Wednesday, June 6, at 3:30 p.m.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bernard Patry]

Okay. The clerk asked me if the standing committee could meet for half an hour to discuss all the witnesses, but I'm not sure it's necessary. You could all send the lists of witnesses all parties want to appear in front of us for Bill C-27. I'll have no problem with this; everyone is here today. It's up to every party to send a list, and we're going to choose from the lists at that time. Sometimes the same witness could appear. You'll remember that this is what happened on Bill C-35.

Go ahead, Madame Jennings.