Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The government opposes this amendment. In our view, adding the specific intent element here would make the offence more difficult to prove, as it would require the prosecutor to also prove the intent of the accused. We heard testimony from a number of victims, especially about people distributing these images recklessly, and we believe that is the appropriate standard. In several cases we heard from the parents of several of the individuals who unfortunately are no longer with us.
It is not at all clear to me and to the government that with this change in the definition that there would be the ability to get a conviction in those particular cases. So on that basis, in order to protect the rights of the persons whose images are being distributed in a case where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy and the individual is reckless as to whether or not this would embarrass and harass the individual who is depicted in the image.... We think that it would be quite a significant watering down of what we're intending to do here and on that basis we'll be opposing this motion.
Thank you.