Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Saini, for proposing an amendment and for your active engagement within the discussion. I do respectfully disagree with what you've proposed. I'll just make two points in response.
The first is on the exceptions in terms of confidentiality in a medical context. There are already exceptions in law for things around child abuse and around the reporting associated with gunshot wounds. These are things that doctors do. Hopefully they're not necessary to do very often, but they're things that are established in law because we recognize that the protection of vulnerable people at certain points in time exceeds that bond of confidentiality. I think that's right and appropriate.
In terms of the issue of the Governor in Council designation, there is nothing in this provision that precludes a designation of provincial bodies for the purposes of that designation. Arriving at those designations, when and where possible, in collaboration with the provinces and territories would be a very reasonable thing to do. At the same time, this is a question of tracking information for the purposes of criminal law, recognizing that there's health and there's criminal law and there's a point where there needs to be a dialogue between the two, and that obviously involves the engagement of different levels of government.
We're amending the Criminal Code here. To do that effectively, we need to establish the provisions for that designation. However, again, this should be implemented with a good level of provincial and territorial co-operation, including potentially in the process of that designation.