I think that really is crucial. Again, I believe that the bill in its present form is still worth passing. I would strongly recommend that the committee adopt this amendment by Mr. Dubé.
A lot of times I've heard people say that just because someone tweets doesn't mean they should get protection of it. Just because someone is a blogger doesn't mean they're necessarily a journalist simply because they maintain a blog, and that they should not get this protection. I have more faith in the judges in this country to be able to distinguish between someone who has tweeted occasionally or had a blog or something like that who would claim these decisions. I believe that the judges in our country are well enough trained to be able to tell the difference.
The fact is the nature of journalism has changed. Many journalists now are freelancers. They are not getting paid for it as their primary job. A lot of journalists get 60% to 75% of their income from writing technical manuals or speeches or things like that and the rest of their journalism is a passion project.
There are organizations out there like Discourse Media on the west coast, the Halifax Examiner on the east coast, VICE News in Toronto, and CANADALAND, which everyone is familiar with, that rely on freelancers, many of whom might only write one or two stories for them a year, but which could have extremely important impacts on Canada. Often, depending on the type of outlook and the stories they're working on, they will have confidential sources whom they need to speak to in order to get this information, and yet they would not be covered by this very narrow definition of a journalist. That is why we feel that it needs to be somewhat broader so that it is left up to a judge, and a judge can make the decision as to whether someone should fall under this protection.