Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Courtenay—Alberni is absolutely right. There are a lot of costs associated with this bill. The cost-effective solution would be to go into CPIC and delete the records. That is all that would be needed. The government has said there are different databases and records stored in courthouse basements. Guess what. When employers ask for a background check and people go to the RCMP, where does the RCMP get the record? It gets the record out of CPIC. When the Government of Canada shares information with the U.S., what database does it share? It shares the CPIC database.
Therefore, from the standpoint of addressing the stigma associated with a conviction that impedes employment, housing, volunteering and crossing the border, expunging the records from CPIC would go a long way. The current government did not do that.