Mr. Speaker, as the member knows, for a bill to be tabled in this place at first reading, it has to have already received clearance in terms of the charter provisions. It strikes me that we may have to assume that. Since we are dealing with this bill in the first instance, I certainly hope that this matter will be flagged for the committee because we are going to be into a major review of this whole DNA data bank again.
It is important that there be a full understanding. If the public does not perceive this to be appropriate under whatever circumstances, it tends to cause some skepticism as to whether or not we are being careful with regard to the matters that relate to the charter. Time and time again in this place it comes up for debate in terms of charter issues. I would have thought that because those arguments are so fundamentally important in any piece of legislation, there would have been a position statement in the rationale with regard to matters which are of concern, rather than simply the bill and perhaps a press release generally outlining its provisions.
Parliamentarians speaking at second reading are really meant to provide some indication of the areas of concern that the committee may be able to address in its consideration of a bill. This is the way members who are not members of the committee have an opportunity to express their concerns. Quite frankly, even from reading the bill, I am not sure that I was satisfied that it provided the insights that I might need to otherwise do a full job. There is not even a legislative summary which we normally would receive, which is unfortunate.
I wanted to raise this because the government operations and estimates committee has in the past dealt with certain privacy issues. These are the kinds of matters that have come up. The issue obviously would be, are there are any risk areas or unintended consequences that may arise in the event that certain provisions are made and would they put us potentially on a slippery slope for other difficulties?