Thank you very much.
We on this side have said that we have always wanted the categories of terrorist organization, criminal organization offences, and serious personal injury offences. If we were to capture those offences that we think could be taken down to smaller categories, those would be the included ones that we would be looking at.
Mr. Brooks, I think people need to understand that when a bill.... In the last Parliaments, our past government sent bills to committee after first reading, so there was a lot of flexibility on how you could amend. Now, a bill sent after second reading is much more circumscribed concerning how you can do amendments.
It is somewhat unfair when my colleague across the way, who knows this, starts asking you to cherry-pick through these things, as if we can just propose lists and schedules, when, the way the current section has been set up, it would be more likely to be in categories. That is something that is important to understand for people trying to come before this committee to give us guidance on how we should amend.
That is why we have been trying to.... There are other ways. There could be ways, for instance, of taking the sections and instead of saying 10 years say 14 years, or life. That would have the element of reducing the list, but again, in a more arbitrary manner than would a categorization of offences. I think we have to understand that.
Also, when it has come here on second reading and you amend, you cannot add new elements and create, for instance, a new sentencing principle, because that would be outside the authority of the amendments that are found when you come before this committee after second reading.
So there's far less flexibility than is being suggested here to do real amendments of this bill. It's a question of a way of finding the categories. I say this so that other people coming before us have this knowledge, so that they come with a more targeted approach that would be helpful to this committee, because we are struggling with it. I believe it is very arbitrary, the way it is right now, for the reasons Ms. Schurman gave us.
Ms. Schurman, I'm not sure whether you're familiar with the studies Professor Mauser gave you. Would you feel comfortable commenting on other studies on over-sentencing? It's been stated in the evidence of Mr. Muise that people don't undercharge or overcharge. I believe there are numerous studies available on that point. You would probably be aware of some of them.