We have asked for all-party agreement to deal with the bill now. My hon. friends have been kind enough to agree. We are dealing with, as I have said, a process that has been methodical. For some time we have been working at it, but it has been accelerated by reason of the request of the Government of Quebec for help in the present circumstances.
Over the last couple of years there have been almost 50 people killed in the gang war in Quebec. I met last week with Mrs. Desrochers, whose 11-year old son, Daniel, was killed in August 1995. He was walking down the street in Montreal on an errand for his mother. The police believe one of these gangs detonated an explosive that was intended as another offensive in their gang war. A piece of shrapnel blew across the street and took the life of the 11-year old boy.
I met with Mrs. Desrochers last summer in my office. The hon. member for Hochelaga was kind enough to introduce me to her. She asked how much longer she must wait before something was done about it. I told her we were working on it and the police were working on it. She met with me again last week. She said she wanted the bill in place and she wanted the police to have these tools. The most important thing to her was that the bill might help the police to find the people who are responsible for her son's death.
There are few more eloquent explanations of why we are moving quickly on the bill. I think of that grieving mother. I think of that 11-year old boy who lost his life. I think of a gang war that continues. We do not know from day to day where another bomb might be found or where it might be exploded. The criminal law is not something that can react on an hourly basis either to judicial decisions we do not like or crises that arise in terms of crimes in the country. It is an instrument that should be brought to bear in those circumstances where we feel as parliamentarians it can help in a lawful, practical way.
This is a problem of long standing which is of significant concern to our second most populous province. It has asked for our help and our urgent action. We have produced a bill we think is lawful and which will make a difference. It is under those circumstances we have asked that its adoption be expedited.
I am sensitive to those who say that greater care should be taken and a longer look should be taken at this bill. It may be that the other place may have its own ideas too about when and how the bill is considered.
If it does become law in the next little while, I can see us saying that we will commit to monitoring its progress, to reviewing its operation, to seeing what we have learned from it in operation. I have discussed this matter with officials. They think it may need a period of a couple of years or three years before we are able to look meaningfully at what we have learned from it by the time the wiretaps are in place and there is some empirical data by police across the country.
I would be happy to say to the hon. member that the government will return within three years with a statistical assessment of how this bill has operated, what the effect has been, what judicial decisions have been reached under the bill, whether there have been challenges to its validity, what the police say about how valuable this is as a tool in their hands, what changes might be desirable from a policy or practice point of view. That would be useful. It should be done anyway, but I would be happy to undertake to the member that the government will do so if he would find it of assistance.