Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments from the hon. member for Charlottetown. I want to thank him for giving me the opportunity to say a few more words. He is right, this amendment was extremely important.
Amendment No. 5 from the NDP created this new clause:
REPORT TO PARLIAMENT
30. The Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada must prepare and cause to be laid before each House of Parliament an annual report for the previous year on the operation of this Act that contains the following information:
(a) the number of restitution orders [which our Green Party colleague spoke about] made under section 16;
(b) the number of requests for information [from victims] made under sections 7 and 8; and
(c) the number of complaints filed under sections 25 and 26.
We feel this is a vital part of ensuring that this kind of bill succeeds. In 10 years or less, victims will have faced this legal ambiguity first-hand, as it will likely come into force in the coming year. It would have been useful to have these statistics.
However, once again, as in so many other areas, this government is not very fond of statistics. It does not like any facts that could prove that this was all just a smokescreen. This charter presents well in polite company, but it needs a little more meat on the bones.
That amendment would have put more meat on the bones, but unfortunately, the Conservatives rejected it.