Pursuant to the order of reference of Friday, October 26, 2007, we are dealing with Bill C-2, an act to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to other acts.
I first want to welcome all of our MPs back from a week in their ridings, and to a reinvigorated committee to continue our work on Bill C-2.
I welcome our witnesses who are here this morning. We certainly appreciate the efforts that you all have made. I know that this committee was formed in fairly short order, and we certainly appreciate the fact that you've been able to put time into your schedules to be able to join us here and present your perspective on the bill. We obviously have something to learn from that this morning.
I know that we've only been away for a week, but let me make a couple of gentle reminders in terms of timeframes. Each group has ten minutes to make their presentation, whether an individual or a group. It's up to you to divide your time. If you are dividing your time with your colleague, certainly that is your decision to make. It's your time to do so. I would just respectfully ask that if you keep an eye on me, I'll try to give you a warning when there's about a minute left in your presentation, so you know that you can work towards wrap-up.
The way the questions will move is the first round of questioning will begin with the Liberal Party for seven minutes. Each party will have a seven-minute allocation. Once we get into subsequent rounds, they'll be five-minute time-allocated question and answer sessions.
I again would ask if you could just keep a bit of an eye on me in terms of being able to make sure that we get as many questions in as possible and that we stay as close to our timeframes as we can.
With that, I would like to ask the Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers, Mr. Rady and Mr. Roitenberg, to please start.