Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As a preamble, I'm a bit shocked—dismayed, really—that the parliamentary secretary to the government for justice and the chairman of the justice committee would not realize that there are separate roles for the prosecution, the police officers, the defence lawyers, and the judge. I might recommend to them the learned preamble to the show Law & Order, which says that the criminal justice system is served by two separate and important entities, the police who investigate the crimes.... Anyway, I could write that script. The point is, since we're on television, Mr. Chairman, I thought I'd allude to that.
More seriously, on the question Mr. Moore raised to Mr. MacCarthy about the CBA, I've been a lawyer for 21 years and one month—sitting here, I calculated that—and I've always paid my dues, by the way. I've always been very proud of the CBA. I thought it was an advocacy group; I thought it was a membership group—until I got here. Not that I'm not proud.
What I'm saying is that there have been aspersions cast upon the CBA at this committee on several occasions due to the fact—and I'll be quite blunt with you—that there are section chairs and subsection chairs who often write letters under the same letterhead as yours, the CBA's, who purport, I suppose, if you don't read how it's signed, to represent all the members. Well, they don't. They signed it very clearly as a member of the criminal law subsection.
Today—and it is very important for everybody to pay attention—Mr. MacCarthy is writing a letter and making a submission on behalf of the CBA. So I must ask you, when you make the comments that this does not serve Canada well, to underline briefly for me how it is that you represent the views of the CBA, if you didn't call Mr. Moore to ask him his view on this.