Thanks, I appreciate it.
Good afternoon, Minister. Thank you very much for joining us as we begin this journey on C-75. I hope we're going to have ample time to thoroughly review it and discuss its merits and shortcomings in detail in the fall.
I have two specific questions I wanted to ask you, hoping that the government would be amenable to amendment. The first involves the routine police evidence question, and the second involves some of the implications of raising the minimum penalty for summary convictions. Perhaps I can start with routine police evidence.
It's pretty rare when you consult people from across the spectrum—academics and practising lawyers in different parts of the country—to get, essentially, unanimity, which is the case in our situation. When I asked these people about the problematic components of this legislation, one that everyone agreed about was that the proposed section involving police evidence being adduced by affidavit, proposed section 657.01, is in desperate need of amendment.
The routine police evidence language in the bill has been called too vague, creating an opportunity for abuse. For example, University of Alberta law professor Peter Sankoff went so far as to write that it is “extremely dangerous”. I think that it makes a lot of sense for lab results and other routine evidence to be at issue and submitted without requiring a police officer to come to court and testify. I'm totally in agreement with that. Indeed, I think that's probably what was intended, but the drafting of this section could allow even eye witness testimony to be submitted in this way.
I understand that defence counsel could come forward and ask for the right to cross-examine, and the courts are going to say yes. However, that's only going to cause more delay, and you've told us that dealing with delay is your agenda for this bill. In addition, many self-represented individuals—poor, marginalized, folks who can't afford legal aid—are not going to know what to do, causing delays and sometimes even injustices.
Can you commit to accepting amendments to this provision so that it's narrowed and clearly defines what routine police evidence consists of?