Madam Speaker, I have looked very carefully at the input from my colleague from Vancouver Kingsway on the predecessor to this bill. His intervention on this bill raises very serious questions for me.
As a lawyer in Canada, I commit to abide by the rule of law. This is why we have legislatures. This is why we have parliaments. We are duly elected, through an open election, to enact the laws and then to rule our country by the rule of law.
What I find extremely troubling in this bill, including the amendments, is that there really is no attempt to have balance. The government is always talking about its efforts to balance the two interests in the country. I see very serious incursions into the democratic principles of this country and our ability to rule by the rule of law, particularly when this bill would take away the right to know the charges and to be charged before being interrogated and incarcerated.
I wonder if the member could speak to whether he believes that the amendments put forward through this new bill would remedy that situation. On my review of the bill, it looks like those provisions are, frankly, contradictory.