Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, gentlemen, for your presentation. I'd like to ask you to expand on two particular issues. One is what I think Monsieur Petit and others referred to, or the terrain onto which they brought you, and that is the issue of deterrence. The other one is the simplification of the various measures in the code.
With respect to deterrence, Mr. Yost, I think it may have been in answer to Mr. Murphy's question, but I think I heard you say that a provincial suspension was in fact a very effective deterrent, that the immediate revocation of the driving privilege could be a very effective deterrent. I would have thought that the whole criminal conviction, the public trial, and someone having to show up in a provincial court...and even if they were to plead guilty, the chances are that if they're unlucky, there will be a local journalist there watching. I would have thought that the Criminal Code sanction, with someone getting a criminal record and all that that entails, would in fact be a greater deterrent than simply, let's say, lowering it to 50 milligrams and being able to have a quick licence suspension for three months under provincial legislation, and not having, as Monsieur Ménard was discussing, a criminal sanction. So I'd be curious to have you expand on the deterrence aspect.
Secondly, if we have time, perhaps you could finish your thoughts from when you were answering Mr. Comartin. My sense is that a great deal of the pressure in provincial courts from prosecutors is around the complicated terms of the code, the different decisions, which have in fact provided interpretations to various aspects of the criminal legislation with respect to impaired driving. Can you expand for us in a layman's version how this committee could assist in simplifying the code to increase the prosecutions and the laying of charges in cases?