Thank you.
I'm sorry. I neglected to recognize our witness by video as well. Is that correct? I apologize for that. I'm looking at the screen here. I do apologize for that.
You spoke about the road map. As my colleague Mr. Garrison pointed out, there were two paths, and we took one path. Again, I voted for the legislation, but I would be remiss if I didn't ask this question, because it has to be asked.
I'm looking at paragraph 98 of the Brown decision and I'm going to quote it here.
It may be that the voluntariness problem could be avoided if Parliament legislated an offence of dangerous intoxication or intoxication causing harm that incorporates voluntary intoxication as an essential element—in this hypothetical offence, the gravamen of the offence is the voluntary intoxication, not the voluntary conduct that follows.
Then later in the paragraph:
This, however, is not what Parliament enacted in that s. 33.1 exposes the accused to jeopardy for the underlying offence, not for extreme intoxication which is not, in itself, an unlawful act.
What I'm seeing there is almost an invitation from the court to go down that path. I am mindful, as are all of us, of parliamentary sovereignty in that we dictate our own journey, if you will, and I'm also mindful of the minister's comments that you would have to charge two offences instead of one. You would have to charge sexual assault and then you would have to charge criminal negligence caused by extreme intoxication, to wit, sexual assault.
Was there a concern that perhaps the court was sending us in that direction? Is there any concern that maybe the court was saying, “Look, this is the most airtight way to do it?”
I invite your comments on that.