Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the hon. member for the fine work he does on the committee. As an ex-justice minister in Quebec, he brings an enormous amount of skill and knowledge to our committee.
He is quite right. Unique examples do not make good policy. Often they elicit great emotion, and that has to be given its due respect. However, if we are making sound laws, we have to think about those laws and be intelligent and measured in our response. That is why I was so disappointed that the government came down with this legislation prior to having three months of effort.
Again, members on the committee from the government side cannot say it, so I will: They must be disappointed. I wonder what they would say if they were on this side of the House and another government pulled that kind of stunt on them, where they had a committee work for three months and was just poised to issue a report when a government came down with legislation that rendered the result of their work utterly meaningless and academic.
New Democrats want to stand up for Canadians. We want to make this registry work, both the DNA data bank and the sex offender registry, to protect Canadians and make sure that we make people in their societies and communities safe, while also respecting rights at the same time. That is the Canadian way.