Mr. Speaker, the question that has been asked by my colleague from the NDP, who also sits on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, is quite serious. I will not speculate on what the government's future intentions might be.
As to the issue of the appropriate sentencing for first degree and second degree murderers who have been convicted of those charges, I can say that I have been in the House since 1997 and there were members of the previous Reform Party who did, in fact, express a wish for the return of the death penalty. I do not believe that they sit in the House at this time. I believe that some of them have been defeated, either at their nomination conventions or in an election, or have retired.
I am not going to speculate on what the government's medium- and long-term intentions on that should be, but I am dismayed when we have a minister, whom I actually respect and I cannot say that for many of the Conservative ministers, who comes before the committee and does not appear to be intimately aware of, understanding of, and knowledgeable about his own legislation that he is bringing forth.
The member is entirely right. The Minister of Justice, when he came before our committee with the arguments that he gave wanting to save victims' families from having to relive the pain, the anguish and, I can imagine, the terror over and over again, had to be informed by members of the opposition, myself included, that in fact his bill did not remove that reality because it was not retroactive.
That was the point at which I asked the minister about whether or not he had considered the possibility of making the repeal retroactive, period, finished, if he were that concerned about the victims' families.