It could be that under Mr. Williamson's legislation the maximum penalty he would face is one year, under any of those. Even if it's called an unlawful practice, Mr. Williamson's bill might not catch him at all anyway.
But this is adding to the element about why he wouldn't be caught, because Mr. Williamson's bill included the Elections Act, because it included all statutes. This only includes the Criminal Code. The Elections Act strikes me as going to the heart of some of the trust issues that all of these Criminal Code offences seem to touch on. That's the first thing.
The second thing is, this now removes the element of retrospectivity that we heard an expert witness say would not be a problem in this context, because it's attaching civil consequences to something that would have been a crime before. Amendment G-1 says “ceases or has ceased to be a member and who is convicted on or after the day on which the subsection comes into force”. That was not language that was in Mr. Williamson's. The “on or after” is new, and it means that any conviction before this bill comes into effect wouldn't be caught; you could resign and be safe under this.
It's not as expansive as what Mr. Williamson wanted and it's not what we heard from expert witnesses, saying that there's no constitutional problem; the witness also suggested that there is not a huge unfairness problem.
There are three elements. Let me summarize.
Mr. Williamson's bill would not catch Mr. Del Mastro, to the extent that it set a maximum two-year penalty as potential. So already it seemed not to catch that situation, which is odd, given what Mr. Williamson was trying to achieve. Secondly, this would create another reason that Mr. Del Mastro would not be caught, because it's only concerning the Criminal Code. And he would not be caught, if you understand that he has been convicted before the act comes into force. So there are three reasons.
That's why I continue to think, going back to the motion, that our amendment is the cleanest and the most principled. It follows the structure of the act, it uses exactly the same mechanism, and it doesn't get us into advanced line-drawing about what does and doesn't merit this kind of sanction, because if by definition the House decides that somebody should be expelled, that's the existing logic of the act.
If you were to resign in order to avoid that logic, surely you should be caught by the logic. That just seems to be what Mr. Williamson's bill was all about.
That's why I continue to insist that this is the best amendment.