Ladies, thank you for coming to help us before we move on to the clause-by-clause study, which will be carried out on Thursday. Hearing from the different witnesses has been extremely beneficial. It goes to show that this issue is not simple. Drafting these documents must not have been simple either. I would be surprised if anyone were fundamentally against the goal we hope to achieve with Bill C-26.
Considering what we have heard, I appreciate your comments on certain notions that were not entirely clear to me. I had to briefly discuss them with you this morning. I will set them aside because you have addressed them already.
However, I still have some concerns about the bill in light of some of the witnesses' comments. I am still unsure how my questions can be answered. They mostly pertain to citizen arrests and the fact that a new dimension is being added. I know that it all stems from a single case. We have all said that trying to resolve a legal problem based on a specific case could lead to difficulties. Be that as it may, the two are not mutually exclusive.
Clearly, it is a matter of making the arrest within a reasonable time. As a lawyer, I always struggle a bit with that kind of an issue. I do know that reasonableness is sometimes the most difficult consideration to interpret before the courts. That’s at the heart of the matter. Colleagues in attendance have talked about potential cases when it comes to reasonable time frames. We know that such questions will come up before the courts.
I would like to know whether you, as a Department of Justice expert, feel that it would be worthwhile to focus a bit more on reasonable time frames, to pre-set a maximum limit. Would it be beneficial to set a 48-hour time limit? The idea would be to avoid deficiencies of recollection three, four or five days later.