Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just following up on Mr. Braden and Mr. Bell's comments, again we heard during the public consultations, a number of people asked us to consider an amendment to clause 5 to prohibit discrimination on the basis of a criminal conviction that was unrelated to the employment, service, or accommodation, or that we alternatively consider deleting the current reference to criminal convictions for which a pardon has been granted.

Mr. Chairman, the committee agreed that many of our residents may have criminal convictions for which a pardon has not been granted. However, we were concerned about the implications of expanding this protection to include criminal convictions "not relevant to the job or service." We spent a lot of time discussing this, but were unable to come to a consensus on the information that we had received.

Mr. Chairman, what we were hoping to do is to ask the Department of Justice to study the implications of expanding what is currently found in Bill 1 to protect people with criminal convictions, and come back to us with a discussion paper outlining whether or not Justice finds it necessary to amend this legislation to allow for some of those...to allow for the amendment that was requested by people making presentations to committee. Therefore, Mr. Chairman,