Thank you.
I wasn't here. My colleague Alistair MacGregor was here, but I understand that Dean Embry, from the Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers, expressed general support but had one concern about privacy in entering the offender's mental health information as an exhibit in court in all circumstances.
My amendment—and I'll come to the wording of it in a minute—proposes that the pertinent information be given to the judge without unnecessarily committing that information to the public record in every circumstance. Ideally, the mental health information would be provided in a section that's reviewed only by the judge in a part of the report and then factored into the sentencing. That would allow us to preserve the privacy rights of the offender, satisfying the concern. At least the attempt was to satisfy the concern that Mr. Embry suggested. I understand he was supportive of the general bill but had that one very specific concern.
I worked with the legislative counsel. The drafting of this amendment is taken from the section of the Privacy Act that talks about disclosure of information relating to physical or mental health. The words that are used in the current statute are “without the consent of the individual to whom [the information] relates”. It talks about “duly qualified medical practitioners”, etc. The language about “the best interests of the offender” comes out of that statute. The objective was to try to parallel a statute that has privacy as its foremost concern and use language that is similar in the Criminal Code amendment.