Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the officials and my colleagues Ms. May and Ms. Kwan.
I am moving CPC-1, please, and I'd like to explain why. I'm mindful of the fact that we may not have agreement, but this is quite important to me.
The language in this bill carries not only a lot of responsibility but also an ability for the government to do a great deal of things. The language, in my view, is somewhat ambiguous in places. I know sometimes we get legislation that's drafted to catch everything and then our job, as legislators, is to bring it together.
We've heard all sorts of testimony, but I think when the courts go to interpret this, they will interpret the plain meaning. That's the basis of statutory interpretation. That's the start.
I'm greatly concerned that if we do not include that certain things are excluded—namely, appropriate speech, lawful expression, debate, persuasion—from the definition of interference and explicitly exclude the content of the communication from the definition of “telecommunications system”.... It's my view that we need to narrow this down in order to clarify that we are only attempting to catch material threats to a telecommunications system. With the language we have now, we are casting too broad of a net.
I will listen with intent to what my colleagues from the Bloc and the Liberals say, because my hope is that we can come to an agreement, if they're not agreeable to this section, to carry out our intent.
Thank you.