Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The purpose of this subamendment to NDP-6....
I think Ms. Kwan has joined us, so I'm eager to hear her thoughts as well. Ultimately, it's her amendment, although it's similar to CPC-6.
What I have heard in the last meeting or so of testimony is that there is a problem with the police being able to get the information through the production order, at least as it's conceived currently, in a time that they would feel is reasonable.
Now, taking their view, I'm sympathetic to that, because there seems to be a bit of an iterative process that takes place. Partly, it seems to be just the nature of the investigation, but partly, it can be.... What frustrates me a bit is what seems to be a reluctance on the part of the recipient of a production order to prioritize that.
I have seen that in my own legal career. Companies often have limited resources, just like government or anyone else, so they may not perceive responding to regulators or, in this case, law enforcement to be at the top of their priority lists. However, in my view, it should be taken seriously when a production order is issued to an entity, whether it's a business or another type of legal person.
What I'm trying to achieve here is to take the spirit of Ms. Kwan's amendment, which is to set a baseline of 30 days to respond. That provides at least some target, both for the police to understand when they might receive information and for the recipient of the order to produce that information in response to the order.
Now, I accept that 30 days—from what I've heard from Mr. Wong—is a bit of a codification of what is already practised. The 30 days itself, in my view, is not arbitrary. It's a codification of existing practice, so that's a good starting point. However, I'm sympathetic to the idea that, in some circumstances, that's actually too long, especially in a case where the production order is more narrow, based on the investigation itself.
What I want to try to do with the subamendment is keep the spirit of the 30 days but then also keep what Mr. Wong said is important, which is the discretion of the judge to tailor that requirement to the situation. Thirty days would be the upper limit of the starting point. Then, if the circumstances were to demand it, the judge or the justice could decide on a shorter period. That seems to satisfy, at least in my view, both issues.
That is my intent in bringing this forward. I'll pause there and hear from, perhaps, Ms. Kwan—it was her amendment—and my other colleagues. Then maybe I'll have some other thoughts after hearing them.
Thank you.