Thank you, Mr. Chair. I really appreciate your clarifying at the onset of this the process which amendments would be put in and out of order based on a vote on this. I think that's very good practice, and I just wanted to thank you profusely for that because it's very helpful.
From my perspective at least, Conservatives have been very clear that the changing of the age range is concerning, and that's part of why our amendment removed that piece to allow a little bit more flexibility. I really do think that, in the absence of having heard from witnesses on this specific bill who were outside of government, we really, truly do not know if advertising to 17-year-olds and advertising to 18-year-olds are different or the same. We don't know what this is going to mean, and I think that is problematic and could potentially lead to unintended consequences in terms of the application of this bill.
I want to reiterate that I don't think anybody wants to see children being manipulated in a way that is counter.... We want to see healthy kids. Everyone from every political party wants to see healthy kids. We want to see children who are active and healthy, and this is part of the concern and part of the challenge that we've had from the very onset with this particular piece of legislation and not hearing from some of the stakeholder witnesses.
I understand that the government will say that we heard from witnesses the last time a bill similar to this came forward, but that's not the same as hearing from witnesses, because, if at some point in the future, this piece of legislation were to be challenged in a court, the judges would look at the testimony from all of the conversations we had in all of the committee meetings to see the intent behind this. That is the process judges typically follow. I find that kind of cool. It means that some of these meetings where we talk about the intent matter more than just whether it's a good or bad bill.
I say that because we truly do not understand what the implication of this change could be, because we haven't heard from witnesses. I think that opens us up to a potential court challenge at some future point in time because we don't have the full intent, because we don't have all of the witnesses able to tell us in their words what their feelings are.
I think that serves as a detriment to the longevity of this bill, and I believe that it would be valuable for committee members to vote against this so that we can vote in favour of the Conservative amendment.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
