Confidence in the judiciary, like confidence in all our institutions, is fundamental. It's hugely important. To answer your question, I believe this bill will go a long way—I too am concerned about the stark statistics about under-reporting—toward giving confidence to the public but also to the victims of sexual assault.
Another important aspect about confidence in the justice system is an independent judiciary. Perhaps I could just take an opportunity to elaborate on that. The concern is that while all parties agree with the noble spirit of this legislation, not all policies will be agreed upon. There could be some controversial policies. The concern we have is that when the language used in the bill....
We will provide you, Madam Chair, with a document of the bill with some very slight changes to highlight the importance. When the verbs are “must” and “shall”, you have to look at the spectre of five or 10 years from now, or 10 or 20 years from now. What if a government not so well intentioned were to direct judges to learn about, say, “the myth of the residential schools”. Let's say there's a reference made to the Supreme Court of Canada on a controversial policy. Pick whatever it may be—climate change or whatever policies are hotly debated now in Parliament. What if Parliament were to direct judges to say, “We want you to learn about the myth of the Holocaust; we want you to learn about our version of climate change; we want you to learn about our version of this”?
That's the concern we have. We are humbly suggesting that maybe the language could be tempered so that the verbs “must” and “shall” are not there and the vision and the laudable goal of the legislation would still be met.