Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I will reiterate what Sean Casey just said. It's a fundamental aspect of the right to a fair trial to know your accusers. I note that in an earlier response, Mr. Goguen referred to it as using a pseudonym, but that's not what proposed section 486.31 contemplates. It says the judge can “make an order directing that any information that could identify the witness not be disclosed”. That's going far beyond using a pseudonym.
It's not clear from the testimony of Mr. Krongold, of the Criminal Lawyers' Association, who said:
I'm not sure if I'm reading the provision right. I hope I'm not reading it right. But it's hard to imagine a more fundamental change to Canadian law, one less consistent with Canadians' visions of open, fair justice, where everybody has a chance to a fair trial, where they can make full answer and defence and confront the witnesses against them.
A similar point was made by the Canadian Bar Association, that this clause “contemplates at least the possibility”—and I'm now quoting from Mr. Gottardi from the CBA:
that the accused and counsel for the accused and the crown might have to cross-examine or direct examine a witness when they have no idea who the witness is. I haven't found a single case that talks about that, and I can't imagine a scenario, short of life and death and someone essentially amounting to a confidential informer, where that kind of process would pass constitutional muster.
Drawing from that evidence, and frankly preferring the deletion approach, I have crafted a series of amendments that attempt to at least circumscribe the opportunities for such application of the judge's discretion to those cases in which there is in fact a life and death situation. The first of a series of amendments that all work to this purpose is Green Party amendment PV-12, which amends it to read:
that establishes that the disclosure of the witness' identity could endanger their life
So the amendment is that in the application of the currently proposed section 486.31, the application of this anonymity provision for a witness be very much circumscribed to a life and death situation.
I'm still not sure whether that would be constitutional, but it would be better.