Mr. Chairman, this amendment is similar to the amendment that I proposed outside of the meeting today, except that we're talking here in terms of the defence of property. The view here is that, again, it's preferable to legislate in the positive rather than the negative in regard to these defences. In this instance, I said in relation to the defence of property.
The current bill begins in section 35 by noting, “A person is not guilty of an offence if”, and then it goes on to discuss something which denotes a misconduct from which they are being excused. The amendment that I'm proposing just puts it in positive language: “Everyone is justified in acting to protect their property if”. It's just an amendment to restate the same principle in the positive rather than the negative.