Justice committee  No. Obviously the private member's bill would fundamentally change the law. I know there's been some discussion of what other common law defences would then come into effect. The Library of Parliament's paper on this gives a helpful summary of that. It's just that there's a lot of vagueness around the de minimis defence, which has not really been applied in this context.

Justice committee  The Supreme Court noted in its judgment the importance of balancing the need of children to have safety, psychological integrity and well-being with their need for family integrity and family cohesion. It said that parents would not be subject to reports, investigation and prosecution—although possibly rarely—as that disrupts the family and is in that way damaging to children.

Justice committee  I don't think removing this is the only way to deal with the abuses that children face and that they're—

Justice committee  I think this ties into a point that Mr. Caputo was making about part of the disagreement at the Supreme Court, which I think was largely about who should be clarifying the law, not necessarily that corporal discipline should not be permitted at all. I'll run through that really quickly.