Mr. Speaker, we support a lot in the bill and we have all along. We have agreed to the increase in the age of sexual consent. We have agreed with the use of alcohol and driving provisions. We have agreed to most of the bills as brought forward by the government on criminal justice. We even offered to fast track them. We have offered amendments. We have worked with all parties, through committee and through the House, to offer amendments to improve some of the bills, and we see some of those improvements in these bills. That is how a minority Parliament should work.
Members of our party have some concerns about the reverse onus. However, if we look at the question of three offences in a very limited class of the most serious offence, an individual having three offences under that class before this provision applies tempers it somewhat. Then we look at the expertise of Mr. Cohen provided at the committee. While I am no constitutional expert and I do not have the distinction of the member as being one of the most intelligent parliamentarians and not a graduate of a law school, I am concerned about the question of manifestly unconstitutional. I do know how strong this is in giving us confidence that it would meet charter challenges.
However, I also know that it is pretty well impossible for experts in the field of constitutional law to give absolute guarantees on anything because we cannot prejudge the court. The court is an independent body that looks at the laws by itself, and we have seen many instances. I remember one in the fisheries role in the Marshall decision, where the government was not prepared for the Marshall decision that came out of the Supreme Court. All experts had told us that the federal case was strong.