Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First, Mr. Fraser, I should have raised an objection. The next time a letter is delivered to this committee, I will insist that it be written in both official languages. I think it should have been done before it was distributed. I would just ask for that courtesy, that both English and French be respected any time something is delivered to this committee.
Second, I think this letter definitely needs some amendments, so I will move some amendments to the motion. Because there is division in this committee about the reasoning behind this bill, I don't think we need to include the specific reasons, such as our concerns about the bill. I think that entire section, starting with “Based on testimony...” and including points one and two, should be completely deleted. I think anyone who reads the committee's proceedings can find out why certain members of this committee had a problem with the bill. I don't think we need this to further the aims of this letter. I would delete that entire section and just end it at “...we have concluded that the Bill has the potential to have the opposite effect.”
Turning to the next page, I agree with Mr. Cooper. I don't think this letter is in any way strengthened by acknowledging the hard work done by both ministers. There are varying opinions on that, and I don't think the language is necessary. I think all of the language around acknowledging the hard work of both ministers on the justice system and the Canadian Police Information Centre should be completely eliminated.
If you go further down to point one, it talks about the Minister of Public Safety: “We would like to encourage the Minister....” I think we should change “would like to encourage” to “encourage”. I'm always in favour of making verbs more direct and not putting in a bunch of adverbs.
Similarly, in point two, where it says, “As part of that undertaking we would ask you to consider...”, let's just take out “would” and say, “we ask you”.
Those are my amendments, Mr. Chair.