Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to our witnesses for being here today.
You are right, Ms. Ashley and Ms. Rosenfeldt; we probably cannot even come close to understanding what you've lived, so I won't even try to imply that I do. We don't. We can do it in an intellectual way, but definitely not with the same amount of emotion and hurt that you must feel. It gives me shivers just hearing what happened to your sister and to all the cases you were talking about. There is nothing worse than that.
We have a job to do, which is to look into legislation and see what we can do with it.
My questions will be mostly for Mr. Mayes, not because I don't understand your feelings. Ms. Ashley, if this legislation were in force right now you would probably be preparing to go in front of the parole board for the first time. I'm sure it would probably be as fresh in your mind as if it were yesterday. It's something that you never forget, I'm pretty sure.
Mr. Mayes, you said you obtained some legal advice, but you talked about the Library of Parliament. The Library of Parliament, and correct me if I'm wrong, does a legislative analysis but they do not give legal opinions. I think we asked you during debate at second reading in the House if you went further than that. Either through the Department of Justice or the Minister of Justice, did you get some analysis on what, let's say, a judge would impose? The jury would have said that this is such a disgusting case the person first of all will get life and will probably [Technical Difficulty—Editor] for ever, and thank God for that, but here's the 40 years before.
Do you have some legal analysis on the constitutional grounds? Aren't you afraid that type of decision might be thrown out of court based on section 12 of the Charter of Rights?
Do you have anything to add to what you obtained from the Library of Parliament in the way of legal advice?