In the context of recognizing the contribution made by the member for Prince George—Bulkley Valley, I would also like to recognize the contribution of the member for Berthier—Montcalm, the member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, the member for Scarborough—Rouge River, the member for Sydney—Victoria. I would say to the hon. member this was an all-party initiative, that it did come from the House, that it was referred by the House to the committee. The committee did ask for and did receive an extension in time because as one got into the issues, one started to realize that the issues were fairly complex. We were rewriting the criminal code.
For a lawyer, it gets no better than that, to dive into the code and rewrite the code in accordance with testimony that we heard. We heard testimony from literally all over the country, some of it initiated by the member for Prince George—Bulkley Valley. But there are other areas where the member for Prince George—Bulkley Valley was off in directions to which the committee would not and could not go when they were logically inconsistent and could not be supported.
For instance, the issue in this bill was minimums. If we think about it for a few minutes, putting minimums in on this would create another level of absurdity much like the member for Berthier—Montcalm, who was concerned about the individual who goes to a Christmas party, drinks one too many and kills an individual. His argument was that takes the offender up to a life sentence.
It would be even worse if we went to a minimum of seven years because it may well be that a judge would say in the circumstances that this is not an individual who is a habitual drunk driver and that this was a mistake and even though there was a very tragic consequence that the sentence should not be a minimum of seven years. That is one of the reasons we did not go that way. The member for Prince George—Bulkley Valley would have gone that way.
There was much give and take in the committee. It was a period of time of the committee which made me proud.
There was a minimum of partisanship. After we got into the bill, after we heard the testimony and after we drafted the report we recognized that it was hard to take partisan positions because it did not make a lot of sense. I thought it was a great moment for the committee, and that member along with a number of members of the House made significant contributions to the committee.