I thank the member for his support of our organization's support of the bill.
I can say I agree with you in that it seems clear from the drafter's intent that the list is really not meant to be a closed, exhaustive list of factors that judges can consider. But the quite intense consultation that we undertook—we talked with our prosecutors and our practitioners, our defence lawyers, and had anecdotal experience and the experience of our members—told us that when judges are given or faced with a list, there's a natural tendency to go through it and effectively treat it almost as a checklist: Does this apply? Does this apply? Does this apply? It's that natural tendency, when one sees a list, to go through each one and apply it to the case before them.
So our thought was that it needed to be emphasized and perhaps even re-emphasized that it is not an exhaustive list, and in fact it's only the relevant factors in that list that need be and should be applied to a particular case.