Mr. Speaker, I think the issue of the motive behind all this is an interesting one, which obviously is what the hon. member is asking.
On the first part of the hon. member's question, the propositions, if they are related at all they are very far stretch. They are largely unrelated, that is true. I suppose the motivation of the hon. members who put the motion is probably to describe that all these things may be examples, in their view, of a role they think is too big for the judiciary. Maybe that is their argument but they can make it themselves. Maybe that is what they are invoking.
Obviously the propositions are very unrelated. One of them, as the hon. member, the House leader, has just raised, is an issue being studied by a committee of parliamentarians obtaining and soliciting opinions of Canadians. Another one is an issue that involves a decision made by the Supreme Court within the parameters of the charter and to which the House has already responded by way of legislation, Bill C-20. The third one is completely outside of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and goes beyond that. Therefore they are very unrelated propositions.
On the issue of inmate voting, to be totally fair it does not go quite as far as what the hon. member has just said. The original Supreme Court decision of some years ago, the one that said that everyone who was incarcerated could not vote, was thrown out. However that is not the one that was thrown out lately. Following that first effort, Parliament re-enacted the law but put in the provision, I believe it was two years, so those who were short term incarcerations, overnight and something like that, perhaps even wrongfully charged or whatever, those people were not covered by the law; only those who were in penitentiaries and longer term incarcerations. That in fact was the decision that was eventually given for which the government appealed all the way to the Supreme Court and lost in a five to four decision. However it did not involve at that point the short term stays in incarceration, only the long term ones, the other one having been disposed of several years earlier.