I don't think it will make a tangible difference, because it really just picks up a small part of the Supreme Court of Canada's decision in R. v. Lucas, which confirmed that in order for the offensive defamation to be made out, the publication has to be to a third party and not only to the victim of the defamatory statement. I don't see it as very significant.
If you don't mind my adding a comment, because I didn't get a chance to say it in my primary submission, Bill C-51 is a very important initiative. What the Minister of Justice has done is take a look through the Criminal Code in its entirety and try to identify critical provisions that are either obsolete or raise charter risks.
What the centre would simply like the committee to know is that it would be unfortunate if blasphemous libel were identified when the other forms of libel that share the rationales that are operative for Bill C-51 were not included in the inquiry. That's really why we're here.
To answer your question a bit more directly, the proposed amendment to the definition of defamatory libel really doesn't address the issues that are of concern to us, which have to do with the existence of the offences.