Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm very impressed with the evidence today from everyone. I know everyone feels very strongly about their submissions.
In balancing it all, however, it seems to me some of the most compelling evidence came from the chief of police who used the example of Jamestown—I'm not from here, so I don't know where that would be—and how basically he forced the service to crack down on a problem with the tools they had, which led me to believe the existing laws, policies, and deployment of resources appeared to work in that case. He sort of unravelled that ball of yarn by saying we've made the charges, but we don't know if they're going to stick. To me, that is a bit anecdotal, despite the fact that he said the crime rate is down in specific instances. It remains to be seen, with all due respect to the chief.
I was also struck with this call for evidence-based conclusions, and Mr. Rosenthal made the point—I could hoist him by his own petard and ask where he gets the statement that people don't think of the penalty just when they get caught. But I don't want to waste my time with that, because I'm sure he has the studies to back it up and will give us those. I do thank you for coaching me towards this evidence-based thing.
The thrust to my question is—because, Mr. Muise, you made a number of comments—am I right that your evidence comes from your 30 years of experience at the Toronto Police Service, the front-line discussions you recently had with 150 people who are part of the criminal justice system, including victims, and the various studies you referred to? You gave a lot of anecdotal evidence. You gave a lot of opinionated, heartfelt evidence.
Can you tell me about this 150 people round table thing you had?