Candidly, no, I'm not aware that any of our members have been charged under this section of the Criminal Code, but we do have 100,000 members across the province and I'm not always aware of what's happening to each individual member at any given time.
There has been significant case law with other people being charged.
The number of cases that I read was at least up to a dozen, and even the courts themselves were confused and they came up with different interpretations. Is the firearm a weapon? Is it not a weapon? When is it a firearm and when is not a firearm? When is it a weapon and when is it not a weapon? The courts themselves have had some difficulty in addressing how to dispose with these particular cases.
When you read the case law there have been dissenting opinions and most of those cases go right up to the Supreme Court. Clearly even the judiciary has some trouble in terms of definitions and in terms of establishing exactly what is and isn't correct under the law as it's written right now, which is why we feel this bill would clarify that and clear that up, and hopefully if there are charges laid it would be much easier to deal with in that respect for the courts.