Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The amendment would change the current law, which requires that a police officer “suspects on reasonable grounds” that the detention of the person in custody is necessary in order to prevent the carrying out of a terrorist activity. Given the serious nature of a terrorist activity and the potential harm it could cause, raising the grounds here to “believes on reasonable grounds” would make preventative arrests more difficult, and thus would be inconsistent with Bill C-51's legislative objective to facilitate the use of these terrorism prevention tools, which, I might add, has been supported by the Supreme Court in the past.