I hope it's not too grim.
First of all, with respect to all members of this committee, I need to put on the record that the motion that brings me here is one that I do not find helpful, but rather coercive. I would have rights, unrestricted rights, as a member of Parliament for the Green Party but not in a recognized party to provide substantive amendments at report stage—other than, I imagine, the PMO telling all of you in every committee to pass the same motion that was drafted under Stephen Harper to make sure I couldn't present amendments at report stage. There's never been a time in Canadian parliamentary history when a majority party has gone to such lengths to deprive a party of one MP, already with very few rights...to have even fewer rights and have to show up for clause-by-clause in this restrictive capacity. I need to put that on the record every time, but with that I will speak to my amendment, which is deemed to have been moved, because I'm not a member of the committee.
We've heard evidence from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association about this particular section that we're dealing with in clause 15. I'm proposing to change lines 5 to 6 on page 15, lines 9 to 10, and lines 14 to 15, for the purpose of alleviating what the Canadian Civil Liberties Association described as an attempt to fix something that has an extremely rare chance of ever presenting itself, but which results in a shortcut in proving criminality and a reversing of the onus of proof that are not justified. The purpose of all the various sections that are amended in amendment PV-1 is to restore the crown's responsibility, and not to reverse the onus of proof.