Mr. Speaker, I heard the comments by the hon. member in regard to this very controversial piece of legislation.
I wonder if the hon. member had the opportunity this morning to pick up the Ottawa Citizen. On the front page he would have seen an article referring to a federal court decision yesterday in which the Minister of Public Safety and this bill have been put to serious question.
It would appear that the minister of public safety in 2008 decided to ignore the advice on the transfer of a particular offender coming from the United States. Brent James Curtis did not represent a threat to Canadians, was not a terrorist, was not involved with organized crime. He was a minor player. The minister used discretion which a judge in this country has determined to be the wrong discretion and now the member is advocating for that same discretion to be used holus-bolus.
I wonder if the member could reconcile the absolute embarrassment that the government has had to endure as a result of this case and why he believes that this legislation should pass when giving the minister those kind of arbitrary powers leads to the wrong consequences, even when he knows, as the minister knew, the decision was wrong and that he ignored his own staff on this particular subject.