Madam Speaker, certainly, I think the debate on both Bill C-51 in the previous Parliament and Bill C-59 in the current Parliament have been quite thorough.
With time being limited, it is hard to rehash my arguments where I disagreed on some elements with my colleague, but certainly when it comes to the peace bond process, in particular, it has not been without controversy over the last number of years in Canada. However, one thing we do welcome is the use of special advocates, for example.
To go back to one of the points I made in my speech, I think it is the eternal challenge to ensure fairness in the prosecution and the work that the RCMP does, law enforcement in particular. I say this because the word “fairness” might sometimes ring hollow to Canadians, as they might assume, as I said perhaps a bit too glibly, that we are using kid gloves with people who have perpetrated horrible crimes. However, fairness goes not only to the core of the rule of law in ensuring proper judicial proceedings free from political interference, but also serves to make sure that should the person actually be guilty of the crime, more fairness in the proceedings will result in a higher rate of conviction without some kind of procedural piece, or a judge or a defence lawyer managing to uncover something amiss.
I do not want to get into this next issue, because it is a whole separate piece, but the Conservatives, for example, have been very critical of the Prime Minister commenting on Vice-Admiral Norman's case. By that same barometer, we have to be careful with our comments in the cases of returning foreign fighters, if we really want to see them convicted.