In terms of the legal issues that they seem to be discussing, those are certainly outside my area of expertise. So keep that in mind when I'm answering.
Certainly in terms of the bill as it is, the first thing that struck me is that it's almost certainly not going to reduce the likelihood of the tragedy that's occurred. This tragedy seemed to me to be very clearly rooted in human error in the sense that it would be very difficult for me to even envision how the police officer involved or the justice of the peace involved purposely withheld that information. I believe if that information were there, they would have presented it.
It comes down to a question of why it wasn't there. Would a legislative obligation have produced that information? I don't believe so. I will go back to the fact that if this was, in fact, human error, legislation can't change human error. If it was just an oversight and they forgot, it seems to me that having legislation or not having legislation that says you have to present it won't change that. That is my first comment.
The second one is that this bill constitutes, for me, another cog in an already very complicated section of the bail law. I've wondered if part of the human error that I'm discussing, which was involved in the Rehn decision, might very well be rooted in the high volume of cases that the criminal justice actors are having to manage every day in bail courts. It seems that less volume may have meant more time for the police officer or the JP to ensure, as one of the witnesses said, an ability to dot all the i's and cross all the t's. It seems to me that this bill will very likely only add volume to an already exploding problem.
The third issue that stuck me—and as I said, I am not a legal expert—is that the higher evidentiary burden is going to add to court delays. That's particularly concerning to me, as others have mentioned, given the Jordan decision. Any additional time taken during the bail process puts cases even closer to being thrown out for violation of the constitutional right that an accused be tried within a reasonable amount of time. Again that seems very dangerous.