Why are we using the word “adequate”? My understanding is that we hire very skilled drafters in government to do this job for us. They draft something in context, and we run a serious risk, when we start nitpicking and inserting our own terms, of upsetting that very delicate balance that drafters use when they put together legislation. Later on there are some further amendments, and I'll be raising the issue again that there's a danger of our losing the balance between some of the parts of this particular clause because we're mickey-mousing around with the wording.
The word “adequate”, quite frankly, to my mind, coming from a legal background, is inviting litigation. It's returning uncertainty to something that the drafters had hoped was going to be certain. If this is any indication of where we're going with some of these amendments, I'm a little discouraged. I do trust our staff. It doesn't mean we don't exercise oversight over what they do, but at the same time, we have to trust them to a certain degree to provide us with the kind of wording and the flexibility that are required to deliver what we're hoping to deliver with Bill C-11.
I'm not sure this is a great start for us.