Madam Speaker, there are many problems with this bill, and I would like to thank my hon. colleague for pointing out a number of them.
It has to do with the Liberals' excuses as to why they could not proceed with expungement, and with their acknowledgement that the system of keeping records in this country is completely haphazard. Records exist in courthouse basements and police departments. They are decentralized. They differ from province to province.
That is a shocking admission by a government. It is a shocking admission of dereliction of duty and incompetence. Frankly, it is a violation of fundamental public safety. In this country, after 150 years of Liberal and Conservative governments, are we here to tell Canadians that we do not have an efficient, centralized repository of criminal records in this country? Can police or volunteer organizations not even go to one local place and be confident that they will get a reliable source of information about a person's criminal record?
This bill before us, about which I have many concerns, almost pales in comparison to the underlying problem that has unwittingly been exposed by this whole debate, which is that we have a mess in terms of our criminal records in this country.
I am curious about my hon. colleague's comment on that. Are he and the Conservative Party—