The first issue on the motion, Mr. Chairman, is if the intent of the motion is to try to make available to any person the actual reprisal protections embodied in having the commissioner receive a complaint, investigate, and go through a tribunal, we're going to get back into the same constitutional issues I raised on amendment NDP-19. This act is primarily looking at things through the lens of labour relation remedies, so we're into employment labour relations. When you start to bring in people from outside the public sector, we get back into this question of whether or not there is any federal jurisdiction to actually do anything such as having a tribunal with the types of powers this tribunal has.
The protection provided in the act is one of prohibiting employers from taking reprisals against employees and tying a criminal offence to that prohibition.