Thank you, Mr. Chair.
This is yet another amendment dealing with the reclassification of what is currently an indictable offence under the Criminal Code that Bill C-75 will make a hybrid offence. This amendment would maintain it as an indictable offence. That offence is the serious offence of obstructing justice.
The only comment I would make as we're having some of these votes is that at the beginning of the debate around reclassification of offences, a number of Liberal MPs—Mr. Fraser, I believe—said that this has nothing to do with sentencing and nothing to do with treating certain offences more seriously than others; rather, this is all about giving prosecutors the discretion they need in the appropriate circumstances, and to more broadly deal with the backlog in our courts.
Yet, when it came to some amendments related to terrorism offences, Liberal MPs took a very different position. They seemed to rightfully treat those as very serious offences, and that on that basis they should not be reclassified as hybrid offences.
I think it speaks to the fact that when we are talking about the reclassification of offences, it does go to the seriousness of the offence, and that's reflected by the votes taken by Liberal MPs on various of the amendments put forward.