Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Thank you for your invitation to appear in relation to Bill C-218, an act to amend the Criminal Code, sports betting. I'm pleased to appear before the committee in my capacity as counsel within the criminal law policy section of the Department of Justice.
Today I'm joined, as noted, by my colleague Carole Morency, who is senior general counsel and director general of the criminal law policy section.
I'd like to take this opportunity to offer some brief comments on Bill C-218 and the structure of the gaming and betting provisions of the Criminal Code and to discuss the differences between Bill C-218 and Bill C-13.
Bill C-218 proposes to decriminalize single-event sports betting by permitting provinces and territories to offer games or betting products concerning the outcome of a single sporting event, if they choose to do so, as what's called permissible lottery schemes under the Criminal Code.
Under Bill C-218, decriminalization would be achieved by repealing a single paragraph within the Criminal Code that currently excludes single-event sports betting from the definition of what is a provincial or territorial lottery scheme. This paragraph, along with the rest of the gaming and betting provisions, is located in part VII of the Criminal Code. The general structure of these provisions can be broken down in the following manner.
First, all gaming and betting activities are prohibited by default in Canadian law. From this general prohibition on gaming and betting, we find two carve-outs or exceptions, if you want to call them that, for legal gaming and betting.
The first carve-out or exception is the federal system of parimutuel betting on horse racing that my colleague from the CPMA just described. While many aspects of the horse racing industry are indeed regulated by the provinces and the territories, the actual parimutuel system of betting is regulated by the CPMA. As was just noted, it's a special operating agency within Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.
Now, the second carve-out from the general prohibition on gaming and betting is in the form of the provincial and territorial lottery schemes. This carve-out has been in place since 1969-70; it permits provinces and territories to offer a very broad range of games that involve elements of chance or betting products.
We refer in the Criminal Code to provinces and territories “conducting and managing” these lottery schemes, and in fact this is very similar to regulating these lottery schemes. However, in limited circumstances the provinces and territories may also license other entities to operate lottery schemes. Typically we see this in the form of charitable lotteries. These charitable lotteries would be licensed by the provinces and territories.
This brings us back to Bill C-218. Subsection 207 (4) of the Criminal Code defines permissible lottery schemes. We find there the definition of what a “lottery scheme” is. So long as provincial and territorial authorities regulate gaming products within this definition, they are legal activities.
While the definition is broad, Parliament has maintained certain exclusions to this definition, and these exclusions in effect make specific activities once again subject to the general prohibition and therefore illegal.
The exclusion from the definition of a permissible lottery scheme that is the subject of Bill C-218 is found in paragraph 207 (4)(b) of the Criminal Code. This paragraph prohibits the provinces and territories from offering betting products on single-event sporting events. Repealing this paragraph would therefore leave the provinces and territories unrestricted in their ability to offer gaming and betting products that they consider appropriate for races, fights, single-sport events or athletic contests.
Bill C-13, in contrast, retains some of the language found in this paragraph and introduces the term “horse race”. The effect is that Bill C-13,, unlike Bill C-218, would retain the federal role of regulating systems of betting on horse racing across the country. Presently, in this paragraph, the terms “race” and “single-sport events” operate to prohibit provincial and territorial activity in this field.
Those are my comments, and I think my five minutes have just run out.
I'd like to thank you again, Madam Chair and everybody, for the invitation to my colleague and me.