We are not unfamiliar with legislation that has both criminal sanctions attached to it and similar protections under human rights law. For example, sexual harassment is an issue that can be complained about to the Canadian Human Rights Commission, but if the same incidents also make up a sexual assault, then a criminal action can be made on those same incidents. That kind of complementary legislation is not unfamiliar.
We're always concerned with hierarchy of grounds under the Canadian Human Rights Act. We don't want one ground under our act to be subject to different rules from those for any other ground, but because this legislation creates a separate process, under the Canadian Human Rights Act it may not have that same effect.
We are open to further examination of those issues and hope that the committee would look at them, as they do at other issues under the act. The very fact of there being a multiplicity of venues, including the Canadian Human Rights Act, is not unusual wherever Parliament has esteemed that a certain type of behaviour that is more precise needs to be raised to a level of protection of health, safety, or security of the person that provides a need for criminal sanctions.