Mr. Speaker, I would like to put a question to the justice minister. The obvious one is why are they doing this? There were no delays when this bill was called up a couple of days ago. We in the official opposition put up three speakers because there is a considerable amount of interest in this legislation. There was no attempt to disrupt or hold this up. I am very interested to hear what the minister has to say.
This bill was introduced the day before Good Friday, just as Parliament was rising. It has over 300 pages of changes to the Criminal Code. I agree with the Minister of Justice that there are some good things in it, but that being said, there are huge changes being made to the Criminal Code, particularly with respect to the question of sentencing. The minister says she is not reducing sentencing, but if they give the option to the courts to turn these into summary conviction offences, they will in effect be doing exactly that.
I would like to know this as well. Is the minister already starting to hear from groups who are worried about impaired driving and the possibility of it being a summary conviction offence? They make that possible for somebody convicted of impaired driving causing bodily harm. Then there are the changes relating to the kidnapping of children under the age of 14 and participation in criminal organizations. This is huge. Therefore, I am hoping that the minister will answer what the rationale is behind that. I will suggest to the minister that she separate some of those elements from the bill, and then get on with some of the other things that all of us could agree on?