Thank you, Mr. Chair.
This amendment would bring the Criminal Code in line with the change proposed for the Youth Criminal Justice Act, to prohibit imposing a bail condition on a situation where you're intending to use the bail condition to modify or punish undesirable behaviour, particularly in contexts where the person who's receiving the bail condition is really not in a position to adhere to it.
We know we have really significant problems, a disproportionate number of problems, with people who are incarcerated with issues of addiction, mental health issues. It follows the Supreme Court decision in R. v. Antic that terms of release imposed under subsection 515(4) may only be imposed to the extent they are necessary. To emphasize, they must not be imposed to change an accused person's behaviour or to punish an accused person.
I'd like to assist this committee in moving through the bill more rapidly, so I'm going to stop myself there. I will remind you, though, of Senators Pate, Cordy and Hartling, and the points that they made on this bill.