Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much to the witnesses for appearing today.
I started my comments, the first time this bill was discussed by committee, by saying that this is a bad bill. I think I was too kind. What I'd like to do, if I could, with the witnesses is go through this.
I asked the witnesses who came from the department to explain to me how this wasn't a bad bill and how it improved public safety. They couldn't make the case—and I don't think any of you were trying to make the case, but you certainly didn't—that it enhanced public safety. In fact, what we heard was quite the opposite.
Let me start on the issue of recidivism, the rate at which individuals are reoffending. There was an ATIP recently, and I think it was quoted by Mr. Conroy in his comments, stating that over the period of time that was looked at—and I'm just looking at the ATIP now—from 2003 to 2008 the reoffending rate was 3.4% for those who participated in the transfer program. Given the fact that this is a remarkably low rate of recidivism, could you not directly make the argument that for somebody, for example, who is serving their time in the United States, where the rate of recidivism is much higher, we are not only in an anecdotal way but in a concrete way that you can almost definitively prove making a more dangerous situation by not bringing these people home, when you look at comparative rates of recidivism?
I don't know whether somebody wants to respond to that.