Thank you, Mr. Chair.
People who are here will remember having heard a number of witnesses, all of whom were experts in this area, including those from the Canadian Bar Association, say that the terms used in Bill C-13—namely “peace officer” and “public officer”—were much too broad and should be narrowed. For the entire clause of the bill, the term “peace officer” should be understood in the sense of paragraph (c) of that term's definition contained in section 2.
I had some fun during a discussion—but I no longer remember on which bill—just reading all the instances of “peace officers” and “public officers”. It was quite unbelievable to see on how many pages those expressions appeared.
It would be important to narrow the scope of those expressions, so that they would apply mostly to law enforcement. The goal of the amendment is to define those terms within the meaning of section 2, paragraph (c).