Mr. Chair, I move Liberal amendment number 5 which you have before you.
Once again, over on this side, we think that the advice of the Canadian Bar Association is worthy of merit and attention, and it is reflected in this amendment, more particularly, in recommendation number three. Recommendation number three deals with section 19(2) and it is in order to avoid unnecessary delays, and to allow for an application to be made at a pretrial stage so that counsel could be in place by the trial date. If the crown is bound by the present restriction under 19(2), the application would have to wait until a witness was physically brought to Canada to testify, resulting in additional expense and delay.
This deals with the crown's role in exercising rights on a victim's behalf. If a foreign witness under the age of 18 were outside of Canada, the crown could make a pretrial application for an order that he not be personally cross-examined as a witness. The purpose of this amendment is simply to allow for that to take place in the course of the proceedings, which would allow for the witness to be outside of the jurisdiction, and for the proceedings not to be delayed, in accordance with the advice that we've received from the Canadian Bar Association.