Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my hon. colleague if she agrees with something one of the witnesses said in the session that I happened to attend. In fact, there were only two witness sessions, and I was there for one as a substitute. Professor Forcese, from the University of Ottawa, talked about the fact that warrants are now required for overseas activities, but no standards are written into the legislation. He said that the standards would have to make sense in order for the courts to interpret them.
He stated:
I also believe the amendments may be interpreted as requiring a warrant any time an operation may violate international or foreign law. These would be sensible standards....
Our critic from Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca had an amendment ready that said:
For greater certainty, a warrant under this section is required for any investigation outside of Canada that
(a) involves an investigative activity that, were it conducted inside Canada, would require a warrant by reason of the Canadian Charter...or
(b) may be inconsistent with international law or the law of the foreign state in which the investigative activity is conducted.
He did not move it because a similar amendment had already been moved by one of the other opposition members.
I am wondering if my colleague would agree with me that “For greater certainty...” would have been a very good amendment to accept, but at the same time those are eminently sensible standards that we would expect the courts to interpret into the law to ensure that those are the standards applied when warrants are sought.