Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague. I can even boast that he is not just a colleague, but a friend as well.
Obviously, we all know that he is a learned jurist. He wrote his bar exams in the 1970s—AD, that is. There is no chance I will ever write my bar exams, but I take a certain pride in having completed my law degree.
The sort of questions I would like the committee to debate concern the profile of people who were eligible for early parole. What is the rationale for abolishing section 745.6? I know that some police forces have called for it to be abolished.
In my introduction, which was cut short prematurely, I gave three reasons why we had passed section 745.6 in 1977. We wanted to give hope to people in the prison population and to make certain inmates with the appropriate profile eligible for early parole.
Are the reasons section 745.6 was added to the Criminal Code in 1977 and reviewed in the 1990s no longer relevant?
These are questions I would like the committee to debate, obviously with the friendly cooperation of my colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue.