Sorry, I wasn't sure I understood.
Jurisdiction over discrimination is, of course, divided between the federal Parliament and the provincial and territorial legislatures. As you know, pursuant to the Canadian Human Rights Act, federal jurisdiction applies only within certain areas, such as, for example, federally regulated workplaces. Provincial jurisdiction under human rights codes will apply to other workplaces.
On this issue, when we think of the amendments to the Canadian Human Rights Act, for example, they're not going to apply. A prohibition on genetic characteristics in the Canadian Human Rights Act is not going to apply to most employers in the country. The provinces would have to amend their human rights legislation to accomplish that objective, as Ontario is doing with Bill 30, which is currently before the Ontario legislature and is going to amend the Ontario human rights code to add a prohibition on discrimination on the basis of genetic characteristics. It has passed second reading and is now on its way to the justice committee at Queen's Park.
The criminal law power—and this comes back to what Professor Hogg was saying earlier—enables Parliament to pass a law that will apply in all spheres. Of course the advantage of that is that when we believe that something is seriously wrong and amounts to a social evil, then it's not enough to leave it to the human rights complaints process, which is episodic and may deal with a very small part of the issue, and may lead to remedies that are tailored primarily to the individual complainant. It could possibly have an impact in a more systemic sense, but it's not particularly reliable in that regard, whereas the criminal law, especially when you have prohibitions coupled with serious penalties, is, one would hope, going to have a more systemic impact on all service providers caught by the prohibitions, and all those engaging in contracts caught by the provisions.
So yes, there is an overlap with provincial areas of jurisdiction, but that's so common with federal criminal laws.