Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Minister and officials, for coming here today.
If you permit me, Mr. Minister, I would like to also say it's good to see Mr. Lee back again and to share a committee together with him. I would like to just mention for his sake that I'm also on the public safety committee, and I can tell him that, yes, there are many components to the issues we're dealing with here at the justice and public safety committee. I'm also very happy that I can say for his sake, or to him, and to those folks who are watching and listening to some of the comments he made, that this government's been spending a lot of their tax dollars on improving the investigative arm of things by investing heavily in the RCMP and other police forces, as well as making sure that there's an independence with the prosecutorial part by the appointment of Mr. Saunders, of course.
I would like, Mr. Minister, to talk about Bill C-14. In particular, what struck me was the amount of media coverage around that particular bill, and the kind of support that I know comes from the law enforcement community, with which I have a kinship. I think folks should realize that when police departments, police officers, and police associations talk to you, or you consult with them, behind that consultative process you have also community policing committees that they represent and who advise them, and also the victims of crime. I would like to ask you some questions surrounding the amount of consultation you've taken with various communities, not the least of which would be police officers, the people on the front lines who deal with these issues on a daily basis, and what kind of input they had to Bill C-14.