Status of Women Committee on Jan. 30th, 2024

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Okay. This is the one with “refrain from going to any specified place”.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Sonia Sidhu]

Are there any more questions?

Go ahead, Anna.

[Anna Roberts, Conservative, King—Vaughan, ON]

On “refrain from going to any specified place or being within a specified distance”, should “or” not be “and”?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Sonia Sidhu]

Officials, do you want to answer that?

[Chelsea Moore]

This is a technical drafting question. My understanding is that the “or” is interpreted as “and” as well. If you say, “going to any specified place or being within a specified distance”, the defendant would have to comply with both of those things.

Does that make sense?

[Anna Roberts, Conservative, King—Vaughan, ON]

Not really, but....

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Are you asking if it's “of” versus “or”? Is that what you're asking, Anna?

[Anna Roberts, Conservative, King—Vaughan, ON]

No. I'm asking if it should be “and” instead of “or”, but she says it applies to both.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

I like when you read it. I know where you are when you read it.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Sonia Sidhu]

Are there any more questions?

Shall G-11 carry?

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

(Clause 6 as amended agreed to)

(On clause 7)

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Sonia Sidhu]

We're coming to clause 7 and amendment G-12.

I'll ask a member if they want to move it.

Lisa.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you.

It's another consequential amendment of G-6. For my colleague Ms. Ferreri, I'll read it out.

I move that Bill S-205, in clause 7, be amended by replacing line 13 on page 8 with the following:

810.01(4.1)(g), 810.03(7)(h), 810.011(6)(f), 810.1(3.02)(i) and

That's basically it.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Chair, can I ask for a brief suspension with my team for a second?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Sonia Sidhu]

Yes. We'll suspend.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Sonia Sidhu]

We will resume the meeting.

Michelle.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Can I just have the analysts explain what G-12 would do to the bill?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Sonia Sidhu]

Officials, can you answer Michelle's question?

[Julia Nicol]

Amendment G-12 just renumbers a reference in the bill to form 51. That form is served to someone who is required to provide a sample of a bodily substance. It's just a renumbering: (i) becomes (h). This is due to G-6, which deleted the social media condition.

Does that help?

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

It does help, thank you, and thank you for your patience with this as I slowly go through lawyer school while being a member of Parliament. Obviously, you can imagine the consequences of the decisions we're making.

It's because one previous clause has been altered that you have to therefore change the number, because that has been removed. Is this correct?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Sonia Sidhu]

Officials, you can answer.

[Julia Nicol]

Thank you, Chair.

When you delete a paragraph, that affects the other paragraphs after. If you get rid of (f), then (g) becomes (f), and (i) becomes (h), for example. In this situation, (i) becomes (h).

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

For folks watching at home, you can imagine how muddled and confusing this might be. I guess the bottom-line question for folks watching is, what is the consequence or implication of this on the bill itself? The bill that we're studying is to protect victims, in particular, of domestic violence. What does this do?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Sonia Sidhu]

Officials, do you want to chime in on that and answer?

[Julia Nicol]

It provides consistency across the Criminal Code.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Thank you. It's just for the record.