Justice committee  Certainly. The bill takes a purely procedural approach to hybridization. Some of the concerns that have been raised are based on the concern that hybridizing offences makes a statement about the severity of the offence. However, as the minister has mentioned, it's a purely procedural approach.

Justice committee  That is the intention. With some of the ones that are not hybridized by the bill—and my colleague Mr. Taylor may want to elaborate on this—because this bill doesn't deal with mandatory minimum penalties, it may be complicated to hybridize some offences if, for example, the existing mandatory minimum penalty was higher than that in the summary conviction range.

Justice committee  On the first question, in relation to hybridization, currently the election of the Crown is solely at the Crown's discretion, and the judge cannot change that. The bill does not change that, either.

Justice committee  I can answer the second question. There are two parts to that. The first is the operational aspect and how it would work. The amendments in the bill would operate so that when police officers come into contact with an accused who they believe has breached a condition in a bail order, they would have the option of laying a charge or issuing an appearance notice.

Justice committee  In terms of statistics, over the years the number of individuals charged with administration of justice offences has been increasing, despite a consistent decrease in the volume and severity of crime in Canada. Statistics Canada reported that in 2014 the number of persons charged with an administration of justice offence had increased by 8% since 2004.

Justice committee  Sorry. In terms of court time, 40% of cases in adult criminal courts include at least one administration of justice offence. The other thing is that, although I don't have the exact statistics on this aspect, indigenous people and individuals from vulnerable populations that are overrepresented in the justice system tend to have more administration of justice offences.

Justice committee  There are two aspects to your question. One is in relation to what's referred to as “dual charging”: The police arrive, it seems that both people have engaged in violence, and both get charged. The brief you're referring to suggests that this is because there is no flexibility, so the police have to charge that way.

Justice committee  Summary conviction offences exist in the code already. They are generally intended for less serious conduct, such as causing a disturbance or trespassing at night, for which the current maximum penalty is normally a $5,000 fine and a maximum of six months in prison. However, as Ms.

Justice committee  That's right.

Justice committee  Thank you. One other thing for the committee to keep in mind on this issue, Mr. Chair, is that section 802.1 of the Criminal Code applies to agents without defining them. Right now that would allow anybody to appear on behalf of an accused; it's not specifically allowing law students and articling students.

Justice committee  The distinction right now would be that for the provinces that have orders in council with programs allowing certain people to do things, those programs would specify who it would be, whether it would be an indigenous court worker, a law student, an articling student, or a paralegal in Ontario.