Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank the witnesses for coming. I'm very interested in Mr. Henry's statements. I think we should all take a turn at that. I'll save the second round of questioning from our team for that very interesting stuff.
But in the first round, I'd like to ask both Mr. Trudell and Mr. Norton the same questions. I'd summarize it by saying that in their realm of charter protection and civil liberties protections, balanced with society's need to have public safety—which is something that every member of this committee would agree with, the need to have public safety, security—there seem to be some themes coming from these hearings that I think everybody could agree with. Mr. Trudell's comments on collaboration and the working of the forces together—community forces, police forces, prosecutorial, etc.—hits home very much. It's a way to make things more effective.
I think what we're also hearing from law enforcement officials is the need to be more surgical in the tooling up of how to combat needs. It's no longer the idea, as a municipal council might think, of having a policeman walking the beat. It's all marketplace politics. But what we hear is that we need the resources directed to specific problem-oriented policing types of deals, and that's how we can help as a parliament.
In that regard I want to ask about three areas. One is any legislation that might compel telecommunications companies, ISP providers, and device manufacturers to use devices that are susceptible to interception. I take very seriously what you both say about the need to have judicial oversight and protection of privacy rights, but right now there are devices used in organized crime that can't even be intercepted. The judge can make an order, but it's an order that goes into the ether. So I want to know your opinion on whether you think that's safeguarded if there are judicial protections.
The second aspect is forfeiture of the proceeds of crime. Many provinces are doing great work in that, and we learned in Vancouver that if you take the money out of the system, sometimes that's what organized crime is all about. It's very much about taking the money out of the system. In 2005, the Liberal government reversed the onus on the balance of probabilities to show why something shouldn't be forfeited. I wonder how far you think is too far in going after proceeds of crime, before a finding of guilt, pending or during a trial.
The final aspect, if you have time, is that as Bill C-4 rears its head, regarding amendments to the Youth Criminal Justice Act, we're talking about youth being—and I'm in agreement—the pawns in many organized crime activities. Yet they are being used, and some of the provisions are carefully drafted to attack the organized crime units that are using these pawns, by the lifting of publication bans on the names of some of these youths and by doing extrajudicial measures to get at the problem.
I want to know the civil liberties and charter implications of those three areas.