Monsieur Tremblay deals with and is much more knowledgeable about many of the international issues, so I'll leave those questions to him.
In Canada, the main difference I see—and it's a very important and vital difference—is that by signing on to the optional protocol and then ratifying it, we could invite the special rapporteur to come to look at what is happening. They could come of their own volition. Recognizing the value we place on human rights protection—It's an added protection for you as parliamentarians who represent the Government of Canada to be able to go out to your electorate and all Canadians and say, “These kinds of protections are here. So confident are we in that, we have ratified and will call on others to come to have a look. We will be transparent in the way we're operating.”
If you're interested in more of what the implications of this will be, in addition to the Department of Justice you may want to call in the Department of Public Safety, for instance, and ask officials to explain to you what steps they are taking and have taken to assess in the past, and how they ensure there are human rights protections.
There are certainly some deficit areas that we see. I suspect they may also have had some discussion about what it would mean to implement the optional protocol in Canada in the oversight of penitentiaries, the RCMP, detention cells generally—especially remand, and how that would overlap when the RCMP are detaining in a temporary detention situation. What would it mean in oversight of aboriginal justice initiatives, and that sort of thing? There are all of those areas and immigration cells, including where they have exchange of services agreements with mental health facilities. You could ask for that kind of input as well. That would give you a much better picture.
But I think the recommendation that we do this is very much about increasing our ability to monitor and our likelihood of adherence to those international obligations, which I agree are very important and already exist.
So that's my view. I have a list of the countries that have signed on, but Monsieur Tremblay is much more involved in that internationally.