Thank you.
Thank you, gentlemen, for being here today to talk about this very important subject. It's way far overdue. We should have been dealing with this several years ago.
Listen, one of the things I do, especially when we have witnesses, is to think about the average Canadian who's sitting at home, who may want to look at the committee work, who may be listening or watching or reading what has gone on here, who is trying to understand. Most people don't look at the complexities. They look at what they've heard and seen on television. And I'm not referring to CSI, I'm referring to the news reports.
I am getting to a question here.
People just want things to get better. They expect the police, the scientists, and the forensic laboratories to work toward catching the bad people and protecting the innocent victims--in other words, protecting society as a whole. Sometimes the complexity of our legal lobby, as I call it, or the legal machinery, tends to almost turn the public against the very thing they should have faith in.
Often I and my friend here, with whom I share caucus, will discuss the separation between the police and forensic labs, etc. Then I hear the suggestion that the police somehow taint things because of their association with them, that the police cannot be close to the scientists, that the police cannot be close to judges and lawyers, that they bring a.... I know there needs to be a separation, but we need to have some faith that the right men and women are there.
This leads me to the next point--namely, not being able to use some of the samples or not being able to use information that is gleaned from other countries. Criminals and crime don't know boundaries and don't know borders. I can't speak about a specific case--I believe it's still on the go--but we have people who abuse children internationally. Because of the great abilities of our system, whether it be fingerprints or DNA or being able to descramble photographs, we can identify criminals. My alarm bells go off when I hear that this country does not accept or cannot assist investigators in identifying the perpetrators of horrific crimes against our children--or against any person in society, also including terrorism.
I don't know who should answer this, Mr. Bird or Mr. Fournier. I think you've talked about it, but in simple terms, why can't we just use information from external forces and let our police know, or the police in other jurisdictions know, so that they can solve crimes and protect people?