Mr. Chairman, I will. I have spoken on nothing but relevant information to the pardon bill up to now.
I understand your point, and I have accepted that. What I'm talking about is your editorializing to characterize unfairly what I am speaking about. I'm speaking about Bill C-23B and the motion here, and if I have a lot to say, that does not constitute any attempt to block anything. There just happen to be a lot of flaws. It takes a long time to point them out.
I want to talk about serious gaps in what the committee has heard. One thing we have to remember is that the current law right now says that a person convicted of a sex offence will always have that record searchable. Canadians need to know that whenever anybody has been convicted of a sex offence, that always is subject to an organization--particularly ones that work with children--having the police search that and give them the information.
Sex offences are never erased. Again, there is a database that exists that can be searched, and it should be searched, because for anybody convicted of a sex offence, we should be very vigilant to make sure those people never work with children, and that they never, ever are put in a position where they can harm again.
I want to also mention that we've heard evidence that 96%--if I'm not mistaken--of those granted a pardon over the last 40 years do not have those pardons revoked. I see Mary Campbell here, and I hope she can correct me on this if I'm wrong, because it was her testimony. I think it was 96%. That means those people never reoffend, so that should tell us that right now the pardon system, in practice, is working relatively well. We also need to remember that people who are granted pardons automatically have those pardons revoked if they reoffend, so there are some built-in safeguards here. But this bill would seek to create broad categories of offences for which individuals may never apply for a pardon.
So what I'd like to say, Mr. Chairman, and move to here, is that before making these drastic changes, I want to hear from more witnesses. I want to hear from more former offenders. I want to hear from more victims. I want to hear from more professionals who work in the field of corrections. I want to hear from more people who work in our prisons.
I want to hear from parole officers. We have not heard from one parole officer. The very people who work with former offenders and know them best: we have not heard from one of them. I have already lined up, just myself, half a dozen witnesses that I would like to hear from, including some from the government's own ministry. I want to hear from researchers, who can come before this committee and give us some data about how the pardon system works and what kinds of changes we can actually make that can improve the pardon system, so that we make sure we are giving pardons to people who deserve them and we're not giving pardons to those who don't.
Now, sound policy and legislation are based on facts, not myths. They are based on knowledge, not ignorance. They are based on improving public safety, not rushing to make knee-jerk laws that end up making us less safe.
The government side had all fall session to push Bill C-23B. They came up with a motion last Friday to go in the last week before the Christmas break; it was just on Friday, for the very last week. We're probably going to end this tomorrow or maybe on Thursday. They waited until this week to bring a motion to go to clause-by-clause on Bill C-23B when they know we have more study and more evidence to hear.
Why did they do that? Because they're playing politics. I have no doubt that the Conservatives are going to run out of this room and spin this to the Canadian public by saying that the opposition is holding up pardon legislation. They're not going to tell Canadians any one of the 10 facts I just mentioned and that they had all fall to deal with it and threw in a motion at the last minute to try to make it look like they're dealing with something they haven't dealt with.
They're not going to tell Canadians that we haven't heard from a single parole officer or a single person who runs a halfway house, who deal with former offenders. They're not going to tell Canadians that we heard from three people who have experience with rehabilitating their lives.
I ask, Mr. Chairman, what are the Conservatives afraid of? Are they afraid that Canadians will actually understand that their bills are put forward and their actions are put forward for political purposes and not for sound legislative reasons? Do they want Canadians to know that their bills are hastily written, ill conceived, and designed with politics in mind?
I think Canadians want us to make sound policy, Mr. Chairman, and I'm going to oppose this motion for one final reason.
I want sound pardon policy in this country. I want to make sure we give pardons to those who deserve them and not to those who don't. This requires us to take a bit of time. There is no urgency to this. We have waited decades for pardon reform. Again, Stockwell Day reviewed this just three years ago and thought no changes were necessary.
This committee made changes back in June. This Parliament made changes back in June that were substantial and profound and needed. We can afford to take our time a little bit on this, and that's what I would suggest.
So I'm going to vote against this motion, Mr. Chairman.