Justice committee  In addressing some of the points that Mr. Butt raised, I think it's a bit of a straw man argument to say that requiring stricter controls somehow emasculates the police. I mean that's simply untrue. Of course, if there are exigent circumstances, the police don't need a warrant. I

Justice committee  Thank you. It's always a pleasure to be here. As you may know, the Criminal Lawyers' Association is a not-for-profit organization comprising more than 1,100 criminal defence counsel from across Canada. One of our objectives is to educate not only our membership but also the publ

Justice committee  Let's put it this way: I wouldn't be opposed to it. I don't think it adds very much because, in my experience, if a prosecutor asks for a condition and if the judge is considering these conditions, as they must, reasons are given. At least in the cases I've personally experienced

Justice committee  Yes, and it would be very interesting to see why not, to order the transcript and see what was said about it and see what the prosecutor said about it. In my experience, prosecutors are very diligent about making sure—

Justice committee  Yes, and that's always good. It always has to be counterbalanced against the weightiness—

Justice committee  —both in terms of content and the actual weight of the Criminal Code. We're all expected to know the laws. The more we put in there that we may not need to put in there, the more difficult it is for that principle we all accept to actually be true.

Justice committee  Yes.

Justice committee  I think it's somewhat unclear. It looks like it's not necessarily completely the same as.... Yes, you're right, it's in the other one, too.

Justice committee  Removing the “or” and leaving it open to impose both, or just impose one, would provide flexibility and remove the situation where someone says “I complied with one, but not the other”.

Justice committee  From my experience, I can tell you that an offender is never told where the victim is residing. That's counterproductive, and that's not done. There are provisions that can lead to some very confusing situations. For example, if he doesn't know that the victim is within the two-

Justice committee  There are some occasions where the issue isn't addressed. I take it that you've heard about some of those cases. I can tell you that the crown, at least in the cases I've dealt with and that I've heard of, always asks for these conditions and they're always considered by the judg

Justice committee  I think so. I want those reasons as well. I didn't always get those reasons when those conditions were imposed on the clients that I represented. I think everyone deserves reasons. People who make these decisions are under a duty to provide reasons. We have that in our courts thr

Justice committee  I don't have a number that I can pull out. What I can tell you is that in some respects, the bill won't have much of an impact. It's already being done, from my perspective. What I can tell you from my experience in court, and our members' experience in court, is that there may

Justice committee  I think that is a well-reasoned position.

Justice committee  That's correct. I think the practical point is that when you have the geographical exception where two kilometres, for example, might be overly broad because of those services that we've talked about, the problem arises when multiple exceptions are needed to make that geographica