Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We have seen this happen over and over again in Canada, that someone's pretrial detention exceeds the amount of time that they would spend in jail if they were convicted when they eventually got to trial. Delays in timely hearing lead to this problem.
My amendment and, as Mr. Rankin said, NDP-11 would deal with this issue by saying that the accused would be allowed to bring an application for immediate release, if they can establish that they have already been detained for longer than the likely sentencing range that would be considered upon conviction.
It's a satisfactory response to a real-life situation. People spend a long time languishing in pretrial detention for crimes which, even if they had gotten a timely trial and been convicted and given a serious sentencing, wouldn't amount to as much time as waiting to get to trial.