So as I was saying, I have practised law for a long time and I have certainly heard lawyers argue enough cases to know that there are times when judges render a huge number of decisions. It can go up to 50 decisions on the same morning. It happens with the chief judge, or the one sitting in his place, the one who gets all the guilty pleas. Sometimes, sadly, the tendency is to use tried and true formulae.
I can see perfectly how the danger that Mr. Lee describes can be real. Judges can issue an order prohibiting the use of the Internet or any other digital network, with nothing further added. That seems to me to be quite a significant danger. In normal life, professional life, we have access to various networks, and if we are afraid that a convicted person will be using some digital networks for pornographic purposes, we should tell the judge that. Then the judge can add to his ruling a prohibition from using the Internet, or such and such other digital network, for certain purposes.
My fear is also that a judge will stop there, meaning that he will go no further than “or other digital network”. That forces crown prosecutors—and I see nothing wrong with this—to express their concerns and to specify to the judge the digital networks that the convicted person should not use.
So Ms. Morency's explanations convince me that the expression is too general and, in practical terms, people who want to prohibit things must be obliged to specify what it is they want to prohibit, rather than just allowing prohibitions of an extremely general nature.
So the addition to the bill proposed by the member for Scarborough—Rouge River is a good one, and I plan to vote in favour of it.