To follow up on what Ms. Stone has said, with respect to the existing grounds in the act, as she has said, there is no element of subjectivity as the existing standard for measuring whether discrimination has been made out in a given case.
Arguably, a parallel could be made with respect to section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, which of course is the subject of another bill before the Senate at this point.
The way section 13 has been interpreted by the courts, and by the Supreme Court of Canada in particular in the Taylor case, does certainly incorporate a subjective component in terms of the way the individual feels that the particular alleged hate speech has impacted upon him or her. Jurisprudentially, there is some move away from the strict language of that section to look at the impact it actually has.
For example, “deeply held feelings of calumny” are, I think, the words the Supreme Court of Canada in the Taylor case to describe the impact that hate speech might have on a victim. That was one of the tests that was used to determine whether a violation of the hate speech provision has been made out. It's not completely foreign to have a subjective element introduced in a ground, but as Ms. Stone has said, how a court or a tribunal would interpret or choose.... How these two definitions would lead to different outcomes is purely a matter of speculation for us at this point.