Madam Speaker, I will certainly ask the minister a question, but I have something to say about the fact that we have always had unanimity in this House regarding the abolition of this measure, just not all at the same time. That is what is rather distressing in this case, especially since I just heard my Liberal colleague say that his party had already called for the abolition of automatic parole after one-sixth of the sentence has been served, and all of a sudden they are asking why. Now is the time to take action.
In 2007, the Bloc Québécois proposed a justice plan—we were already talking about it. We believe that even though these crimes are considered non-violent, they are extremely violent. Families have been completely destroyed by fraudsters, by white collar criminals. There are people who were involved in the sponsorship scandal and who got out of prison very quickly, so the justice system also got a bad reputation because of this automatic parole.
Action has been needed for a long time. When we introduced a bill for the first time, the Conservatives refused to have it fast-tracked. Now that we agree, the Liberals and the NDP are refusing to fast-track the legislation, even though they had already agreed to do it before.
There is a problem, and I would like to ask the minister whether now is the time to leave partisan politics aside. At some point we have all agreed that this measure should be abolished, so we should ensure that this happens to help restore public faith in the justice system.