Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
To Mr. MacGregor, thanks very much for your insight and your input. There's always great detail.
I think it is important that we maintain this unlawful portion of the bill. As Mr. Steinley said, we did put this through a rigorous legal counsel review to ensure that there were no jurisdictional or constitutional issues with the bill, and there were none that came back. We also wanted to ensure that this protected the opportunities, let's say, for whistle-blowers, those who are lawfully on a farm, whether that's a farm employee or a family member who sees something that is below standards, and that this will be reported. I believe C-205 as it stands ensures that whistle-blowers have that protection to do that important work.
What we are trying to focus on here are those who do not necessarily understand the biosecurity protocols that are extremely stringent. If they don't understand those, we want to ensure that they are held accountable and can't use the excuse of not knowing or not understanding the signage or the rules that are in place.
I also wanted to mention that my colleague Mr. MacGregor brought comments from Dr. Lazare and her submission about her concerns, but Dr. Lazare also testified at the Ontario legislature about their bill, Bill 156. She also made a comment on C-205, and I want to quickly read that:
[T]here are other ways to achieve the legislative objective and have less of an impact on fundamental freedoms. For example, simply raising the fines for trespassing would do the job, or expressly prohibiting the introduction of biosecurity threats, like the federal private member’s bill C-205....
In previous testimony, Dr. Lazare has commented that Bill C-205 is a better way to achieve the goals of what we are trying to do. I think there has to be a balanced approach to this, and C-205, in my opinion, achieves that.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.