Thank you, Mr. Chair.
And thank you to all witnesses.
Starting with you, Mr. Cowper, given the explosion of mandatory minimums that are being imposed by changes in justice policy in Ottawa, my question to you is, what other policies, from a government perspective, would cause greater delays?
Why I mention what's happening with the mandatory minimums is that I think we're taking away the discretion of judges, who are trained and have experience with sentencing provisions. But when you impose a mandatory minimum and there's no choice, then defence counsel is going to fight that case longer. It's going to take more court time. It's going to take more judges. They're going to fight it to the bitter end because there's no other choice, and there will be less plea bargaining. In your remarks you mentioned that 98% of the cases end up in pleas or stays. I think that's going to rapidly change with some of the policy that is coming out of Ottawa these days.
What are your thoughts?