Certainly one of the things I do want to say to this committee is that if section 13 were repealed and we were to rely on the Criminal Code, I think it would be important to look at the Criminal Code and how it operated. There are a variety of issues, and I mentioned several of them in the course of the report.
Again, I think that the practice of the courts and how, under the guidance of the Keegstra decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, the hate promotion section has been interpreted is actually quite narrow. Although one can look at the language and perhaps be concerned about it, it may be that it is already the sort of test I would be looking for. I'm not a draftsperson. I would personally be more comfortable with language that sought to really signal just how extreme the speech we want to focus on is in character.
There are a number of other concerns. One of them really has to do with the role of the provincial attorneys general. As you may know, before a prosecution can be brought under the hate promotion provision, it's necessary to obtain the consent of the attorney general. I don't think there's anything wrong with that--far from it; it may in fact be a useful filter process of some kind. But concern has been expressed that some attorneys general in the past have not wanted to give their consent under any circumstance. I think we don't know a lot about that. Certainly I think I would be troubled if that became a way of simply nullifying the law itself.