Thank you, Mr. Casey.
As with all legislation presented to the House of Commons or through the Senate, or in many cases even private members' bills, the Department of Justice routinely examines them for their constitutional compliance.
With regard to the specific question of whether the department believes, based on that constitutional analysis, that the bill is in compliance, the answer is yes. Do we have specific advice that touches on the subject of the reverse onus? I would say no—while it has been contemplated. This is part of the regular examination of bills that attempts, as a court would, to anticipate certain scenarios, certain factual evidence, that could and would be presented to a court. In regard to the reverse onus provisions here and charter compliance, we believe, again, on balance, that as written in this legislation, it would be found to comply with the charter.
I say that because the reasonable excuse presented here would be based on those factual scenarios of a person's attempting, essentially, to protect themselves, or being of the mistaken belief that the animal was going to use disproportionate force in either tracking them, holding them, or as is the case in some instances, where the police train the animal to do so, biting and holding the individual. If the person, for example—and I'm again doing what the courts often do, hypothesizing—had a panic attack, or the person had prior experience with an animal and as a result responded disproportionately, injuring the animal, we think that a court would properly consider that evidence in coming to the conclusion that they did use a reasonable excuse, that they didn't have the mental requisite, the mens rea necessary to convict a person for having harmed or killed the animal. All of those circumstances, as in many of these cases, would be based on the factual scenario presented to the court.