Mr. Speaker, I think it does. When we surface the charter and the way it frames legislation, it gives us a sense that the laws presented here have been thought of in the context of the charter.
In the previous sessions of Parliament, we saw bills that were immediately struck down by the Supreme Court. While the Harper government loved to jump up and shout about its wonderful legislation, the reality was that the legislation was not charter-compliant. As a result, people's lives were impacted. A lot of time was wasted, quite frankly, because the previous government did not respect the charter when it drafted legislation. While not every single bill necessarily has a weighty argument attached to it, I think every bill that is drafted and presented as law or government policy should be charter-compliant. It should be screened against that, because it adds information and context, rather than our simply guessing whether it is charter-compliant. We would know what the government lawyers and the departments thought of the legislation as they drafted it, which is good information to have. It does not mean that it necessarily is charter-compliant. The judges have a role and the judiciary have a role, but it is a worthy comparison.
I also think that with very contentious issues, it is important to think about the charter at the beginning of the process, not after a bill has gone through the Senate and on to royal assent. It is part of an enriched environment that puts the charter at the centre of what we do here, which means that people's rights will be at the centre of what we do. As we can see from our national housing strategy, that is the way this government likes to roll.