Mr. Speaker, this highlights another problem with the approach of the minister, because one of the issues that the committee was working on was the fact that there are no statistics relating to the efficacy of the DNA data bank.
We asked questions such as how often the data bank has been used to exonerate someone and prove someone's innocence. They do not know. We asked how often the data bank was used to secure a conviction. They do not know. We asked how often the data bank may have been accessed and used to secure a confession by presenting DNA data, thereby saving our judicial system resources and time. They do not know.
One thing that we were looking to do, at least on the New Democrats' side, was to see if we could build in some mechanism of gathering statistical data so that we could show Canadians how this data bank actually works in practice, how it saves them time and money and how it helps make our judicial system more streamlined and fair. However, this legislation was brought forward in quick fashion and Canadians are deprived of that information because of it.