Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'll ask someone at the table who is a lawyer and who's studied statutory interpretation. I'm vastly relieved that Mr. Duffy further qualified his first answer, because I thought someone had found a textbook on law authored by Lewis Carroll, because proposed subsection 12.1(3) clearly says that a warrant can be issued that allows for a violation of the charter of rights and freedoms. Now we have the clarification that a judge asked to allow an activity that would violate the charter has to weigh that against the reasonable limits that are imposed within the charter. In other words, this is exactly, as Professor Forcese said, “a constitutional breach warrant”.
I have put forward language not dissimilar to Mr. Easter's to ensure that no warrant issued under proposed subsection 21.1 can contravene a right or freedom guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It is absolutely the case that warrants are issued every day by judges across Canada, but we have never had a provision that allowed a warrant to violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms or to ask a judge alone in an ex parte hearing without other representation to make a decision solely in that courtroom with no public transparency. The situation allows for a breach of the charter given the reasonable limits provision.