Thank you, Mr. Chair.
When this committee established its priorities, I think we all agreed—and I'm very grateful that there was a general agreement across party lines—how pressing the concerns were that led to the studies that we championed.
There's a reason that we decided to lead off with a study on bail, repeat offenders and sentencing. It was because stakeholders in my riding and across the country have been crying out for action on this file. We have heard from victims' groups. We have heard from law enforcement. We have heard from municipalities. We have heard from provinces about how urgently these issues need to be resolved.
I think the work we're doing on this particular study is incredibly important. We do know that Bill C-9 is before this committee as well, and I think Mr. Brock's motion to deal with these concurrently recognizes that both are important issues. No one is disagreeing with that. We also know that the Liberal government has promised other legislation that is also likely to go before this committee. We cannot have a situation in which the studies that we've all, as members, agreed to adopt get indefinitely punted down the road because of government legislation. I think it's incredibly important that we do both of these studies concurrently. I think the proposal to have one meeting each week dedicated to each of these priorities is incredibly reasonable.
As for the number of meetings, I don't have an exact number, but to Ms. Lattanzio's point, I have already had numerous requests to appear on Bill C-9, specifically from stakeholders with very active participation in this and from individuals representing a range of ethnic communities, religious communities and legal interests.
I do not want to shortchange a very important study that needs to take place on Bill C-9, and I think 10 meetings is very reasonable on that. I think it's more important to do it right than it is to rush something like this.