Evidence of meeting #78 for Justice and Human Rights in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was amendment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:05 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Art Hanger
I call the question on government amendment 3.
(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])
11:05 a.m.
Conservative
11:05 a.m.
Liberal
Marlene Jennings Liberal Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC
Chair, I am not moving Liberal amendment 2, and I am not moving Liberal amendment 3. I am withdrawing both.
11:05 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Art Hanger
Thank you, Madam Jennings.
Liberal amendments 2 and 3 are withdrawn. The question now is on clause 3 as amended.
(Clause 3 as amended agreed to)
(On clause 4)
11:05 a.m.
Liberal
Derek Lee Liberal Scarborough—Rouge River, ON
No, it's not a point of order. It's on the clause.
This is the clause that authorizes the creation of regulations. It allows the creation of regulations, which is just fine. Those are statutory instruments.
The provision also allows the incorporation of what is called “material by reference”. And it says very clearly that “material does not become a regulation for the purposes of the Statutory Instruments Act”.
That makes me nervous here because, Mr. Chairman, as you know, this Parliament scrutinizes with precision all statutory instruments, all regulations made pursuant to our federal statutes, and particularly with reference to civil liberties and compliance with the law.
What I'm concerned about here is--and I want to ask the question--why is the “material” referred to in this provision stated not to be a regulation? And is it possibly the effect of this provision that this material would not be scrutinized by our Parliament for its normal purposes to ensure compliance with the law?
11:05 a.m.
Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
When we deleted this section, we were guided in large measure by the advice we received from our regulation section when we advised them that there is a great deal of DRE material that may already exist under the International Association of Chiefs of Police and that gets amended from time to time when they receive new advice from their medical and scientific panels. They may suggest a different way of doing the test.
It is certainly not the intention to prevent this from being scrutinized, but if we are able to incorporate, by reference, the International Association of Chiefs of Police norms, then we don't have to go through the regulation-making process in order to change three words or one test when they've done it. That is certainly our intention. Since we haven't met with the drafters of the regulations yet so they can go over what material we have from the International Association of Chiefs of Police, I don't know whether it's going to work out that way. But that's what we're intending.
11:10 a.m.
Liberal
Derek Lee Liberal Scarborough—Rouge River, ON
The intention is certainly imbued with the utmost in good faith, and I understand the purpose, but as I read it, it's not clear to me whether or not those changes, as made by third parties--you know, some jurisdiction or non-governmental organization in Kuala Lumpur--may create some of this material that is incorporated by reference. It's not clear to me how much scrutiny our Parliament would be able to apply to that, because there would never be any notice of the change. It would simply be incorporated by reference.
As Mr. Yost points out, the changes would occur, made by third parties, and our Parliament would never have any notice of the change--unless somebody were to call up and mention it.
11:10 a.m.
Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
I would agree that this could happen. Certainly it wouldn't be any kind of secret we'd be pulling off, because we'd have to advise all the police officers in DRE that there has been this change. These changes are in fact proposed. They take anywhere from six months to 18 months, from what I've seen sort of from the outside, to be validated and finally voted on at annual conferences, etc.
Certainly the proposals will not be hidden, but I agree that there is nothing in here that requires us directly to bring it to the attention of essentially anyone, I suppose. But that's what we were thinking about.
11:10 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Art Hanger
So you're to develop training manuals. This is going to be a process. It's not going to be scrutinized through the regulations here as a result of an ongoing process in building these manuals up.
11:10 a.m.
Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
You'll certainly see the regulation that would allow us to incorporate by reference; you know, the International Association of Chiefs of Police norm 417-3--I'm making that up, obviously--as amended from time to time. So we'd be able to tell you what it looked like then, and if they amended it later, it would come into force by the operation of being adopted by the International Association of Chiefs of Police.
11:10 a.m.
Liberal
Derek Lee Liberal Scarborough—Rouge River, ON
Ordinarily I would be trying to find a mechanism that would allow the public record to show clearly the current status of these regulations incorporating the materials. That's a basic in a rule of law jurisdiction, and it's not clear to me how the citizen will have access to this material so that he or she could know what the law was.
I don't have a solution, as I stand here today. I'm just going to accept the public record as indicating where we are. In any event, the charter will always continue to apply.
Thank you.
11:10 a.m.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
I see Mr. Lee's point in terms of where he's coming from with respect to the question, but as Mr. Yost has indicated, these types of issues certainly can be covered under the regulations. A regulation would actually identify what we were using in terms of how the qualifications work, and would indicate also that somewhere down the line they would make sure they were updating and approving whatever mechanism was being used from an international perspective.
It seems to me you're right, but your concerns can be met based on a regulation put after the legislation is passed.
11:10 a.m.
Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
I don't want to delay things, but I've just one point: the citizen who's charged is going to have to prove in court that they followed the prescribed steps, etc., and it's going to be what's prescribed at that time. Their lawyer will presumably get access to what the tests were in order to show that they complied with it.
(Clause 4 agreed to)
(On clause 5)
11:15 a.m.
NDP
Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
As you know, I had to step out. Public safety is meeting next door, and the witnesses and the issue are there because of a motion that I brought. That meeting started at 11 o'clock. So I wanted to put something on the record here, but as I say, I had to step out next door.
I understand that Ms. Jennings has now withdrawn her motions. I wanted to put something on the record with regard to that. Do I have the permission of the committee to do that at this point?
11:15 a.m.
Conservative
11:15 a.m.
NDP