Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's participation in the debate. It has been helpful. I have a comment and then a question.
The member for Prince George--Peace River indicated that we should go forward with retroactivity built in because we do not care about what the Supreme Court says. I would only suggest that were we to create laws that clearly were going to butt up against and hit a charter challenge or an appeal to the Supreme Court, the time involved for that process to take place would be so long that it would be defeating the whole purpose of the legislation. I think the legislation has to work forward in an orderly fashion, in accordance with judicial practice and with due consideration of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I cannot agree with his assessment that different people have different rights under the charter, regardless of one's status.
My question for the member has to do with the retroactivity principle. One of the principles here is the “grossly disproportionate” test provided under section 487.05 of the Criminal Code, which is a discretionary consideration for a judge who may be considering an order under the bill, as the member knows. I wonder if the member could explain to the House whether or not he feels the grossly disproportionate provision is a reasonable provision to apply in terms of the test of retroactivity.