Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Lee, thank you for your presentation. I was here when you were at another committee when you presented, and I'm aware of your viewpoint. With respect to MPs and professors not being subject to crime and so on, I think you've offended the parliamentary secretary, who is not middle-aged. The rest of us perhaps are, but maybe Ms. Davidson isn't. Ms. Jennings clearly isn't.
In any event, I do want to concentrate on Mr. Goldstein, because it's not often that we get somebody who's from the trenches, so to speak, and you've been involved in ten hearings. I want to state from the outset that Bill C-27 affects a provision of the Criminal Code that is in existence. You've worked with it; it works; there are dangerous offender designations made. There have been cases to the Supreme Court that have dealt with it.
This is an attempt, in my view, to work with the system and the designation system to improve it for the betterment of our society. But I am interested, since you put a hypothetical forward. I like hypotheticals in criminal situations, because they give us an insight as to what might happen, which is what we're doing here. Now, in your case, I have to say—and I'm talking about part three, “The chill effect”, second paragraph—I get what you're saying. I am a lawyer, and I have never been involved in a dangerous offender hearing, but I talk to prosecutors and criminal defence attorneys. I find it unlikely in your hypothetical that the DO—What's sort of missing there is that discretion in the prosecution to make the application, which remains in the new amendments.
I'll ask you bluntly: Are you are not sort of lathering it up a bit to make your argument? Isn't your hypothetical a little weak on the idea that these facts would lead to the crown making such an application?
The groping in the pool is a serious offence. And your answer is probably going to depend on what the first two offences are. I notice in your footnote you talk about how somebody who was just driving their car on the way to an armed robbery, with two counts, might catch that, and I understand that. Let's take that situation, since you put it in your footnote. Do you really think most prosecutors would go for the dangerous offender application?