Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I know we have a brief amount of time here. I just think that at the end of the day, before we take away the possibility of removing pardons from a wide swath of people for life, we study the issue carefully and base our decision on our best knowledge, the best evidence, and the best understanding we can get. And having 120 minutes of testimony is simply not sufficient in this regard.
I also just want to point out that I do want to hear from more victims' groups. We did hear from two, and I thought the perspective they brought to bear on this was helpful. I notice that the witnesses also testified that there's nothing in this bill that would provide for them being notified of someone making a pardon application or being aware of a pardon application happening, and that may be something that we, as a committee, want to look at. I think that's another area that we should delve into before we proceed hastily to rush this bill to pass for political purposes.
So far the only testimony we've heard is that lengthening the waiting periods for so many more crimes will hurt the rehabilitation process, and then that also, in turn, hurts community safety. If it's one thing that we all share here together, Conservatives, Liberals, Bloc, and NDP, it's that we all want to make our communities more safe. And while we may have differences on the best way to do that, one thing I think we can agree on is that these are serious issues that Canadians are concerned about, so they're worthy of our respectful treatment, to make sure that we're making decisions and amending the law in a way that is really going to help achieve that objective of making our communities safer places.
Mr. Chairman, I want to again mention that the minister himself, I think to his credit, indicated that he was open to suggestions. A couple of his quotes are: “There are some circumstances in which, even for multiple offenders, we need to look at the situation.” He also said: “If this committee can find something that will address the concern of multiple offenders taking advantage of the system...it would be worthwhile for the committee to consider.”
So we have two clear indications from the minister himself that further consideration is not only beneficial but welcome. I think they were wise comments on behalf of the minister, and that's why I think we do need to have at least another couple of sessions so that we can make sure we hear from everybody, all the stakeholder groups, to have that consideration that the minister talked about that I think is important before we change the laws of Canada. And once again, before we permanently take away the rights of people to have a pardon in this country, we should be doing that on the best evidence available and making sure it's good policy.
Mr. Chairman, I see the clock is at 10:30. I don't know if we're going to be adjourning the meeting at this point? Or at what time do we—