Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Having spent the entire last Parliament on the public safety committee, it feels a bit like home.
I have to say I have a particular interest, of course, in this bill as a gay man of a certain age. Apart from twists of fate, I could be in a position where I'd have to seek an expungement. I could have been one of those who suffered deployment discrimination because of this, or difficulties in volunteering with vulnerable people, or an inability to travel. I was very fortunate, and I'm not in that situation.
I thank the parties for getting this here expeditiously, but whenever people say this has happened rapidly, I just have to point out that people have been asking for this for decades. Parliament moving expeditiously is not the same thing as the process happening rapidly. There are those who have been working for an apology and expungement, and working for more than 10 years to try to get this to happen.
I have no criticism today of the officials, but I do have to say some consultation in the drafting process, or before the drafting process, may have helped allay some of the concerns that had been raised over the weekend by some of the groups that had been looking forward to this legislation. However, I don't believe that is the responsibility of anybody here.
I also have to say that I talked a lot with them over the weekend, and I believe this bill is drafted anticipating that there may be those concerns, and that they can be dealt with later because of clauses 23 and 24. I want to ask my questions in that context. I think the things that are perceived to be wrong are fixable. The example of the fee is one of the first ones that was raised with me because it's not explicitly addressed in the bill, and I thank officials for being very clear that the fee will be waived.
The first one of these concerns is the list of offences. The Prime Minister's apology includes a larger number of offences than those included in the schedule. He makes specific reference to bawdy house provisions and bathhouse raids, and those are not included in the schedule. I guess my question really belongs to the cabinet, which will have discretion to add, but it would seem to me that the list of offences ought to match those things that were mentioned in the apology.
I wonder if there was a reason, for instance, that bawdy house offences were not included in the bill, when they were included in the apology.