Thanks, Mr. Chair.
I note, in a response to a question, that the Barreau du Québec mentioned they haven't had the opportunity to go through it clause by clause but were commenting generally on the theme of this bill.
I guess that's the problem; it's why we can't rush something like this. The words that are in this bill are powerful words. I've heard some testimony that would suggest that there's a complete vacuum now on this issue and that we are faced with the need to bring in the law, when the fact of the matter is that a long-standing balance has been established in Canada.
I think everyone around this table would agree—certainly the witnesses mentioned it, but I think every one of the members of the committee would agree—that one of the great things about our country is freedom of the press. We want to celebrate and to promote that freedom. But the thought could be out there that somehow this is the wild west when it comes to getting this information, when in fact we have achieved, right now—and it's been upheld as recently as last week—a balance in Canada that weighs those competing interests: tackling crime and also, of course, freedom of the press.
There was a recent Ontario Court of Appeal case dealing with this issue that upheld the law as it is. I should note that a member of the Canadian Association of Journalists and, as a matter of fact, a journalism professor, Professor John Miller, who wrote in The Globe and Mail, I think yesterday, says, “A closer look at the facts of this case show[s] that the judges got the balance between press freedom and crime detection just about right.”
That's a comment from a member involved in journalism. He's addressing the suggestion that journalists should have the unfettered right to protect the identity of their confidential sources, period. That has not been the common law experience, and I don't think it is in a direction we want to go in.
Her testimony today, and yesterday's, about the special privilege this would accord journalists if it were to pass as is, going beyond even what we think of with priests, with doctors, going beyond that level and according them a special status that, as drafted now, is overly broad, both the definition of “journalist” and of “source”....
I want to get some comment from you, Mr. Pecknold or Ms. Strachan, on some real-life examples of how this could impact on an investigation. I put the question yesterday of even cases involving national security. The threshold that is provided in this bill is completely different from what we have now in common law and the balance that we've achieved.
I'd ask you to comment on how, with perhaps a real-life scenario, that could be impacted here.