That's a great question.
Let's all focus on what we're trying to accomplish here with this law. What we're trying to establish is that there is a public safety concern about someone who is in possession of firearms, either legally or illegally. If there's a concern about someone who has illegal guns, this process can be followed as well. We want the police to take possession of reliable information and then carry out some enforcement. What we really want is for it to be preventive enforcement action. This provision is not about charging people for criminal offences; it's about preventing harm. That's what we're all trying to accomplish.
Right now, the system works as follows. The police get information, and it can be a complaint or a call to them. I agree that putting the onus on women and other victims of violent crime to go to the courthouse themselves and stand in front of a justice of the peace and plead their case in this application is bananas. I say that as someone who knows how the court system works. However, the police should be able to take that information and, if they have time—in other words, if it's not immediately an emergency—they can draft a warrant or they can go seize the guns and draft the warrant afterward.
With regard to that warrant, there is an important point about confidentiality. Warrants are issued “ex parte”. I know we all hate Latin, but I'll give you a little bit of a Latin lesson. “Ex parte”means without the other side present, and that makes sense. You don't want to tell the gun owner, lawful or not, that the police are coming to get your guns, so why don't you come to this court hearing? That makes sense.
Police are permitted to rely on confidential informants. Confidential informant privilege is the second-highest protected privilege in this country, after the privilege that I get, solicitor-client privilege. Although, once again, Inspector Rowe and Chief McFee might disagree, they're pretty close there, because we recognize that effective law enforcement requires confidential informants. Those provisions exist already, and the police once again also have counsel who can advise them about these authorizations.
Essentially, directing victims of crime who are already traumatized and victimized to go get their own self-help mechanism and go to the court would be like requiring people to lay private criminal information when a crime has been committed. Does that exist? Yeah, but it's one in a million that it happens. The police are taking this problem seriously, and they have effective enforcement tools.