Thank you, Mr. Chair.
After hearing what Mr. Taylor had to say, I'm especially leery about throwing this in. A judge may look at this and say, “Well, Parliament has weighed in, and it's specific to this.” A defence lawyer could easily argue that because Parliament did not include a Boys and Girls Club, because that would not be involved in here.... It doesn't say “club”, from my understanding of reading this—near a school or community centre. We heard from both Mr. Gill as well as from the Boys and Girls Clubs that this could be a potential tool they could use, but we may be limiting it needlessly.
Given the fact that we have to report back, I believe by mid-April, Mr. Chair—and this is an interesting conversation—I'm against putting these things in and creating inconsistency within the Criminal Code. We had a private member's bill previous to that where the NDP agreed with us that the inconsistencies were an issue. I just don't want to see those kinds of things go in.
That being said, Mr. Chair, I'd much rather see our amendments as presented go back to the House, rather than holding this bill up and then seeing all of our good work today go to waste. If it goes past that time, we don't have any recourse other than to submit them independently.
So, Mr. Chair, I will not be supporting the amendment.