Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for your very interesting testimony today.
This is to Professor Silver or Mr. Brown. You spoke at length about preliminary inquiries, as have a lot of other witnesses. The Canadian Bar Association gave us some stats. They said that only 54% of Superior Court cases are subject to preliminary inquiries, out of which 25% of eligible cases actually opt for a preliminary inquiry. The proportion of cases with a preliminary inquiry does not exceed 5% of the overall caseload in any part of Canada, and at most, 2% of all court appearances are used for preliminary inquiries, and the vast majority take two days or less.
My understanding from all of the testimony we've heard is that only a very small number of cases use preliminary inquiries. We've heard a substantial amount about the negative impact that would be imposed on the justice system if preliminary inquiries were taken away. Can you explain how many people would be impacted if preliminary inquiries were indeed taken away, as is suggested in Bill C-75?