Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for bringing that subamendment forward.
We did hear some testimony from the president of the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers indicating some concerns with the security of individuals who are being escorted and not having the proper people in place, as he may have put it. However, the intent of this bill is to deal with the actual scheme of the ETA process with regard to the Parole Board of Canada versus the institutional head from Correctional Service Canada. It does not deal with the processes that are involved with the actual escorted absence from the penitentiary, so it's not dealing with the procedures or any of that sort of thing. I'd actually wonder if that would be within the scope of this bill, because it was clearly not the intention of the person who brought forward this private member's bill to deal with that aspect with regard to this particular section of the code.
Having said that, we will not be supporting that particular amendment. Again, I'm wondering if it is within the scope of the bill, but I would certainly suggest to the NDP if they wanted to create a private member's bill, to bring that forward on that particular part of this section of the code, but it's not something that we'll be supporting at this point in time.