Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of comments on the bill and then on the process.
First, I certainly appreciate one item in this bill, which originally came from Liberal consultation. It is the power to delay sentencing proceedings so an offender can participate in a provincially approved treatment program. We say it all the time that treatment is more of a solution than is incarceration, especially crimes involving drugs, a point that will be made a great deal stronger in the next bill once we finish with this one, which will be shortly.
In relation to this bill, at one time I asked the committee to make it mandatory to present the accused with the short court documents containing charges in the person's language of choice. The committee did not agree because there would be too much paper and yet it would only be maybe less than a couple of dozen papers a year.
The parliamentary secretary said that one Senate amendment could not be accepted because the federal Attorney General would not have the information as to whether a trial was conducted in English or French. One just has to read the record. It would be pretty easy to see that something is written in English or French.
The other thing I want to comment on is the whole ridiculous diatribe on the process from a government that has held up Bill C-2 for so long and in so many ways, as the member outlined, through proroguing Parliament. We had many witnesses. I am sure the minister is being chastised in the Senate today for how long he took, much longer than the Senate probably will to review a bill. The Senate has made many changes.
We will remember that the government not very long ago passed a bill that would disenfranchise the majority of people in a number of constituencies in the country.