Justice committee  Exactly. The correspondence is addressed to the minister, and they are sent to us internally, via the department.

Justice committee  You mean the law amendment acts?

Justice committee  That is some of what we do. We at the justice department are responsible for the program.

Justice committee  First of all, I can tell you that we're not happy about that either. That said, there are changes to be made to the English versions as well. The process of co-drafting is still the best way to ensure linguistic equivalence; however, inconsistencies can still creep in at times during the process.

Justice committee  We worked on them together.

Justice committee  Thank you. Yes, these proposals have been included in the document submitted to you because each of them has been rigorously analyzed and we concluded that they were worth proposing to you. That said, we are fully aware that the term “non-controversial” can be somewhat subjective.

Justice committee  We are hoping that you will agree to amending them, but we have survived 13 years without these changes. Not all of them are that old; some are newer than others.

Justice committee  To be honest, I was hoping someone would ask that. Thank you very much. It has been a while, but I must point out that there need to be enough proposals to draft a document that is worth taking up the time of committees in both Houses. These are minor amendments, so it also depends on how much time parliamentarians can spend looking at the proposals.

Justice committee  If I understand correctly, you want to know if these provisions were included in any bills that have been studied during the current session, namely the 2nd session of the 41st Parliament.

Justice committee  Yes, I can begin.

Justice committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to thank the committee members for having me. I am pleased to participate in your study of the document titled Proposals for a Miscellaneous Statute Law Amendment Act, 2014. This document was developed as part of the law amendment program and is the result of significant collaboration between the justice department and members of Parliament.