Senator Simons: Leaving aside the merits of the amendment, I have to say that since I spoke on this in the chamber last week, I have been overwhelmed with responses from people in the Jewish community across Canada — including the children and grandchildren of survivors — who agreed with me that this was an imprudent strategy.

I’m concerned about the presence of this change in a budget bill. I was privileged to sit in when the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs discussed this and brought in Minister Lametti to ask him these questions. But I remain concerned that, by amending the Criminal Code within a budget bill, we have been robbed of an opportunity to have a more complete debate on this issue.

Senator Moncion: Thank you for the question. The budget bill is used to bring in measures that come from the budget. The budget was presented in April, and in the budget there was information on measures the government would bring forward. That’s why you find it in the budget bill.

We might agree or disagree on the fact that the budget bill or the budget implementation act is not the best place for it, but that is how the government sees bringing forward what is in the budget — to bring it through the budget implementation act. If you look at the budget and see the number of measures there, they are not all in the budget implementation act, because they don’t all need changes, but some do.

That would be my logical answer to your question.