Mr. Speaker, I want to acknowledge and thank the hon. member for Kitchener Centre who worked very hard on committee. She had some great input and many of her suggestions actually wound up in the bill. The hon. member for the NDP spoke about a number of witnesses, and the member was at committee when they spoke.
I want to pose a question and make a comment or two.
One of the witnesses described the issue of statutory declaration and the process whereby tables would be set up in various areas and people would declare who they were. I am sure the member will recall one a question that was posed to a witness about how someone would know the individual was exactly who he or she said. The response was that sometimes they asked them to check their pockets. Sometimes parking stubs or perhaps prescription bottles were found in their pockets. This would help firm up who they were.
One of the witnesses prior to that suggested these folks were often robbed, which is a terrible thing, but ultimately suggested that whatever was in their pockets was not there very long. The question was posed that if this was the case, then the first thing that would get stolen would be prescriptions. The statutory declaration issue became a little less reliable, given the way these folks were identified was in itself completely unreliable.
The member understood this issue very well and she made some great comments at committee. Could she perhaps confirm that although statutory declarations have a role, they certainly have a lot of holes in them?