Thank you.
Having moved on from an attempt to fix 486.31(1), this attempts to insert a new subsection 486.31(3.1) after the listed directed considerations for the judge's discretion, which reads:
For greater certainty, the paramount consideration to guide the court under this section is whether the disclosure of the witness' identity could endanger their life, with the factors set out in subsection (3), in all cases, being subordinate to this consideration.
In other words, one of the considerations here, Mr. Chair, is the importance of the witness's testimony to the case. If you're really, really wanting to convict somebody, then you're going to say, “Well, on the balance of things, their right to a fair trial is going to go down because we really want to convict them.”
I think this is a very slippery slope for criminal justice in Canada, and I hope that proposed subsection 486.31(3.1) at least can be accepted to mitigate the risk.