Justice Committee on May 27th, 2014

[Marian K. Brown]

I have.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

You may or may not know who will be appearing before the committee in the next two weeks, but I can let you know that there will be at least two more weeks of hearings on this. There have been several days of debate in the House of Commons and there'll be several days more when we get to third reading. How much more study and debate do you think is required?

[Marian K. Brown]

I'm not prepared to comment on the parliamentary process. My concern however was that there be—

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Can I just mention one other thing because I think it's important for you to know this. Virtually every witness submitted by every party has or will be heard from. So what are we leaving out?

[Marian K. Brown]

I think what's been missing from the process, and there may not be a remedy in the parliamentary process, is public understanding of what this bill is about. We all know how polarized the debate is. It's very unfortunate that important witnesses such as Carol Todd come to this venue and say that they don't understand parts of the bill.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

I understand that.

[Marian K. Brown]

So that was our concern.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

So Mrs. Todd met with the Minister of Justice following her appearance here. Then she did an interview on CBC Radio a week ago Friday, the Friday before the long weekend, which I had an opportunity to hear. I don't know if you've seen a transcript of it where she changed quite substantially her views on the bill.

Did you hear that interview?

[Marian K. Brown]

I heard it and I reviewed her transcript. I don't think she was substantially inconsistent. But as I said, I'm not taking any position on the process. We only want there to be—

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

So it's time.

[Marian K. Brown]

— the best possible debate on this.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

How much time do you think is necessary?

[Marian K. Brown]

I'm not proposing any particular period of time.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

You've talked a lot about preservation of evidence in exigent circumstances, which I take you to be mean situations where the evidence is likely to be destroyed.

[Marian K. Brown]

Yes.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Help me out here. Why would the preservation of evidence of a potential crime ever be a bad thing?

[Marian K. Brown]

Oh, I'm not suggesting that it is. But it still has to meet a standard for the demand, which is proposed to be reasonable suspicion, and we agree that standard is a—

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

It's not disclosure, though, of the evidence, correct? It's just preservation.

[Marian K. Brown]

Yes, for preservation.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

So is there a circumstance where there might have been a crime committed where the Canadian Bar Association would be prepared to see that evidence destroyed because it didn't meet a particular standard?

[Marian K. Brown]

If you're speaking of evidence that remains in private hands, which is what we have here—

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

So we're just asking an ISP provider, for example, to hold on to the information until a judge can make a preservation ruling.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

We have a point of order from Mr. MacAulay.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

It's a point of clarification.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

That's not a point of order.