House of Commons Hansard #197 of the 36th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was crime.

Topics

Division No. 351Government Orders

6:10 p.m.

Some hon. members

On division.

(Preamble agreed to)

Division No. 351Government Orders

6:10 p.m.

The Chairman

Shall the title carry?

Division No. 351Government Orders

6:10 p.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

Division No. 351Government Orders

6:10 p.m.

Some hon. members

On division.

(Title agreed to)

(Bill reported)

Division No. 351Government Orders

6:10 p.m.

Liberal

Marcel Massé Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC

moved that the bill be concurred in.

Division No. 351Government Orders

6:10 p.m.

The Speaker

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

Division No. 351Government Orders

6:10 p.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

Division No. 351Government Orders

6:10 p.m.

Some hon. members

No.

Division No. 351Government Orders

6:10 p.m.

Liberal

Bob Kilger Liberal Stormont—Dundas, ON

Mr. Speaker, I would first ask your co-operation to withdraw the member for Kingston and the Islands from this vote and all subsequent votes.

I believe you would find consent to apply the results of the vote at second reading to the motion currently before the House.

Division No. 351Government Orders

6:10 p.m.

The Speaker

Is there agreement to proceed in such a fashion?

Division No. 351Government Orders

6:10 p.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Division No. 352Government Orders

6:10 p.m.

The Speaker

I declare the motion carried.

When shall the bill be read the third time? By leave, now?

Division No. 352Government Orders

6:10 p.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

Division No. 352Government Orders

6:10 p.m.

Liberal

Marcel Massé Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC

moved that the bill be read the third time and passed.

Division No. 352Government Orders

6:10 p.m.

The Speaker

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

Division No. 352Government Orders

6:10 p.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

Division No. 352Government Orders

6:10 p.m.

Some hon. members

No.

Division No. 352Government Orders

6:15 p.m.

Liberal

Bob Kilger Liberal Stormont—Dundas, ON

Mr. Speaker, I believe you would find consent to apply the results of the vote just taken to the question now before the House.

Division No. 352Government Orders

6:15 p.m.

The Speaker

Is there agreement to proceed in such a fashion?

Division No. 352Government Orders

6:15 p.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Division No. 353Government Orders

6:15 p.m.

The Speaker

I declare the motion carried.

(Bill read the third time and passed)

Message From The SenateGovernment Orders

6:15 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)

I have the honour to inform the House that a message has been received from the Senate informing this House that the Senate has passed certain bills, to which the concurrence of the House is desired.

It being 6.20 p.m. the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's order paper.

Criminal CodePrivate Members' Business

6:20 p.m.

NDP

Louise Hardy NDP Yukon, YT

moved:

That a legislative committee be established to prepare and bring in a bill, in accordance with Standing Order 68(4)(b), to abolish the legal defence of provocation contained in section 232 of the Criminal Code of Canada.

Mr. Speaker, the intent of the motion is to abolish the defence of provocation which makes excuses for murder. If we as a country hold murder to be abhorrent, so much so that we do not have the death penalty, why on earth would we incorporate values that excuse murder on the basis of an insult or a wrongful act? My intention is to get rid of this defence so that we do not come out at the end of a trial wondering how on earth someone could get less than five years for murdering someone.

This happened in my community. I am still wondering how Ralph Klassen could get a five year sentence for murdering his wife. How can we say that he did not intend to murder her when he strangled her by tying a pillow case around her neck? Because he did not intend to murder her, his sentence was reduced to manslaughter and he got a very small sentence. I will again state that it clearly comes down to how we value human life.

There were huge walks in protest against this sentence. I have been presenting petitions in parliament over the last year and a half asking for the abolition of the defence of provocation. Our justice minister put out a discussion paper last fall but there has been no movement on it.

I will go into more details on this defence. It is a partial defence for murder. What it does not do is take away the right of people to defend their family, themselves or their property. There are specific areas of defence in our laws that look after that.

This law came out of the 17th century where two men of equal class were considered able to fight a duel in effect because someone had been insulted. Since their honour was at stake it was considered quite normal that they would fight. What we call that now is a bar room brawl.

At that time there was a death penalty for murder. The idea was to provide an understanding of a human frailty. Yet we do not provide a defence for someone who commits a murder out of compassion or pity. We do not excuse the fact they felt so bad for the person that they felt it was justified to kill him or her, but we are saying that if someone gets angry, furious or enraged it is all right for them to act on that rage and murder someone.

I will now jump back to Yukon. Within a period of years we had the Klassen murder case in which he got a five year sentence. He was a man who had many degrees, studied theology and held himself to be morally and intellectually above most of his peers or anyone in his community. He got a very short sentence for the murder of a woman he said provoked him, taunted him, drove him to murder.

There was also a young woman who killed her spouse when she came upon him having sex with another man. She stabbed him. He died. She got a maximum sentence. She was not even eligible for parole for a minimum of 10 years.

I am not saying that she should have got Mr. Klassen's sentence. What I am saying is that the defence is wrong and he should have got her sentence. We should not be excusing murder because of a passionate outburst or an angry, rage filled outburst.

The defence of provocation will accept an excuse of something that is grossly insulting, an attack upon a friend or a man coming upon his wife in adultery. Those are the foundations of the defence. It is based on the idea that uncontrollable acts of anger or passion should be forgiven with a lesser penalty, but again not acts of compassion. It is also based on the premise that the victim got what he or she deserved, that somehow he or she deserved to be murdered and we should then excuse the person who did it.

In the Klassen case torment and taunt were alleged. We have to remember that Susan Klassen was dead at that point. The husband and wife were separated. He drove thousands of miles out the highway, came to the marriage home, expected to sleep in the marriage bed, and she said “what is the use?”

To defend this supposed statement he had someone say that a few years ago she had made an allusion to his low sperm count. That was the provocation. That was the wrongful act, words, or the insult which drove this man to murder his wife. There is no way that we should accept those kinds of excuses within the Criminal Code.

It goes even further than that because after that sentence was rendered people who were in anger management programs felt that they would have been better off if they had murdered their spouses because then they would not be in anger management programs and would have been out of jail without having any further obligations to their community or society.

Provocation basically went unchanged until the 19th century when some criteria were placed on it. It had to meet the standard of a reasonable person, someone who identified with you or I or anyone who had reasonable control over his or her emotions. One of the criteria is that the person had to have acted suddenly, that the insult or provocation had to have been sudden and unexpected.

Someone who suffered long term abuse could never use the defence of provocation. If a person had been beaten for years then the provocation of having been beaten was not sudden. Nor was it unexpected. People who have been beaten, whether a child, a spouse or an elderly person who sometimes and often sadly are abused in society, and react in any way to the defend themselves or to kill someone who routinely beat them could not apply for the defence of provocation because it was not sudden. They had been beaten before so they would expect to be beaten more. That defence is patently not available to those people.

Even in the Ratushny report prepared by that judge for justice minister she said that four of the approximate 100 women's cases that she looked at would have been eligible to invoke the defence of provocation. One of them did and it was rejected in the court, and the other three refused to do it for very personal reasons. They felt they were making excuses for what they did and so they did not invoke that defence.

It is not often used for women because the context of the defence does not allow for conditions in which, sadly, women murder. The case in Yukon was a classic case of provocation and it was not even considered for that young woman. She got a penalty which I think is accurate and fair for anyone who murders, especially in a fit of rage, because we are supposedly brought up to control ourselves, not to let words get to us, and to act in a manner according to our community's desire for peace and harmony.

Using the term a wrongful act or an insult widens how this defence can be used. It has been used over and over. For example, if someone says she is barren she could not kill her husband and use that as a justification. Yet if it is turned around it is being justified.

If a man makes a sexual advance toward another man, it is used in cases where homosexuals are killed. Is that reason enough to kill someone? Is that considered an insult? Is that response a lethal response?

Is killing someone else an acceptable response to a word or an insult? No matter how dreadful one feels about that insult, can they retaliate with taking someone's life?

Remember when it comes to using the defence of provocation, murder is never in question. It is established that it was not murder. It is firmly entrenched in our cultural ideas of what an insult is, what honour is.

There was a Witness program which documented honour killings which we generally associate with the Far East. Women I talked to who had watched that movie were absolutely horrified. We have honour killings. That is what the defence of provocation is all about. It is about justifying honour killing.

It is legal for a person to want to leave a relationship. We call it divorce. A person can do that. The most dangerous time for a woman who leaves a relationship is the time period immediately thereafter. That is when she is most in danger of being murdered. She has stepped outside the boundaries, outside of what is considered honourable and outside of the control of the person she married. Therefore her life is in danger, as possibly are the lives of her children. Often her life is taken. Such was the case with Susan Klassen.

What we accept in law is not far from the rule of thumb, where it was perfectly all right for a husband to beat his wife as long as he did not use anything thicker than the width of his thumb. That was the rule of law.

This defence still hinges on those kinds of concepts. They are based on gender and class. They do not have any room in our society. We cannot excuse a man or a woman for acting out in a rage or frenzy. It is not acceptable to say that a person deserved to be killed and because that person said something that was not liked, the person who did the killing is given a lesser sentence.

When a judge reduces a sentence for murder to manslaughter there is no minimum sentence applied. Moving it down to manslaughter means that the judge has complete discretion over the sentencing.

Violence in the home and violence between intimate partners should carry a heavier sentence. It is a position of trust that has been violated. We should be safe in our home, not in more danger. Of those women who are killed, most are killed within the home. Our chief justice says that our law has traditionally insulated accountability for violence in the home, that it has made it all right, that we would turn a blind eye to violence in the home.

It still happens. It happens at the basic level of law enforcement. RCMP officers and other police officers do not want to go into those situations. They turn the other way. It does not matter how many times a woman calls, there is no response to their situation.

What has been accepted as insults in our law? These actions are unlawful but have been considered insults concerning the defence of provocation: articulating one's rights; expressing a difference of opinion; taking a job; having a relationship with persons other than one's spouse, partner or lover; selecting one's friends; maintaining family relationships; striking back when being battered. They are used to justify battering of partners and the murder of partners. The nature of insults is troubling because they can provide and do provide a licence to kill. We have to question, are there any words that we would accept as giving a lethal response?

Other arguments are that this defence would be better if it was broadened and opened up for women to use as well. I argue against this because the premise is bad. The idea of being able to kill for one's honour should not be expanded to include another gender. It would be broadened on a basis that is wrong, on values that are wrong, on a principle that is wrong.

Why would we expand something that is essentially wrong and allow more people access to making excuses? We do not make excuses in other areas of law. Lesser offences do not have a built-in provocation defence to make excuses for people. Why when we hit the most dreadful of crimes in our country, murder, would we then be willing to make excuses?

Canada does not have a death penalty any more. Nobody is facing a death penalty when charged and found guilty of murder. Why would we lessen a sentence to a point where it is almost meaningless within our community?

If we look at provocation in terms of principles, we should not have it. It should not exist and we should not be honouring it in any terms, let alone by entrenching it in our thoughts and in our courts. If it is looked at in terms of stakeholders and who benefits from using the defence of provocation, then there are a lot of problems and questions based on value. We would have a defence that as it stands is more accessible for men to use when they kill their spouse or when they kill someone they have gotten into a fight with. We are making it more accessible in those terms.

Based on principle and value it is not a defence we should be promoting, using or having available for a judge to apply in any manner whether it is justified or unjustified. My point is the defence of provocation is never justified.

The Minister of Justice put out a discussion paper. I travelled around the Yukon Territory last year. In the fall I held a town hall so that I could give a response to the minister and be part of the discussion.

This is one of the topics that is more difficult to speak about but it does not mean it should not be discussed. It means we have to push hard to move forward and to make changes in our justice system that will bring equality.

I do not believe if we abolish the defence of provocation that suddenly we will have a far more peaceful and violence free society. I do not think that will happen but it is a step in that direction.

We have to address the intent to kill. We cannot accept that someone did not mean to kill the person, even though they put their hands around the person's neck and choked the person until their thumbs broke, even though they tied a pillowcase around the person's neck, even though they stabbed someone 47 times. We cannot accept that they did not somehow intend the action to kill. If they do that and do not claim insanity or any altered mental state, then they by their actions meant to kill somebody.

Again, I do not think this will change our society dramatically but it will be a step in that direction. It will be a movement toward saying you cannot beat somebody up and blame it on them; you cannot murder somebody and blame it on them. We will not give a lesser sentence under those circumstances.

I will end with a tribute to Susan Klassen's family, to every man or woman who has been murdered and their murder excused on the basis of this defence.

When our country lost a woman like Susan Klassen, it was a terrible tragedy that will not go away. She was a kind and generous woman, a storyteller of international renown. She was generous with her stories which came out of her like a symphony. She shared them with the young and old, throughout her day, in her job, in our arts centre. She was a focal point for the northern storytelling festival which storytellers from around the world attend.

It was terribly symbolic that she was choked, that her voice was cut off. If her husband could not have her, nobody could have her. Nobody would hear from this woman again. She was in the prime of her life. It was particularly cruel and degrading and frightening to everybody in the community. I am really proud that our city stood up, men, women and children protested.

We cannot allow this. We cannot exonerate people for murder. We certainly cannot do it based on an archaic sense of honour, that someone should be allowed to take another life on the basis of an insult.

This is a votable motion. I appeal to have the issue sent to a committee to be looked at even more closely with the intent to hopefully abolish it and move what we need into self-defence.

Criminal CodePrivate Members' Business

6:40 p.m.

Ahuntsic Québec

Liberal

Eleni Bakopanos LiberalParliamentary Secretary to Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada

Mr. Speaker, Motion No. 265 by the hon. member for Yukon would establish a legislative committee to prepare a bill abolishing the defence of provocation as contained in section 232 of the Criminal Code.

The hon. member presented quite a case and I commend her for paying homage to the reason she brought forth the motion in the House. The Minister of Justice knows the case very well.

While the minister has indicated that reforming the law of provocation is one of her priorities, she cannot support this motion at this time.

Last June, the minister initiated public consultation on the subject by publishing a consultation document. In our opinion, it would be premature to strike a legislative committee while the Department of Justice is still studying public responses on means of defence based on provocation.

The law respecting provocation is complex and admittedly controversial. I think the hon. member referred to that in her own remarks. The defence of provocation is a partial and limited defence and I want to stress that. It applies only to a charge of murder.

Section 232 of the Criminal Code provides that a charge of murder may be reduced to manslaughter if the offence was committed by a person in the heat of passion caused by sudden provocation. Furthermore, the provocation must be caused by a wrongful act or insult that would be sufficient to deprive an ordinary person of the power of self-control and it must also be shown that the accused acted on it on the sudden and before there was time for his passion to cool.

If the defence is successful, it does not result in acquittal. Instead it results in the accused being convicted of the crime of manslaughter which carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

Historically, the defence of provocation has been of very limited application; it was used by men defending their honour during an unpremeditated confrontation, or when their wife had committed adultery.

Nowadays, the defence of provocation is justified by the fact that the law must be tolerant toward human frailty, when a person is subject to a provocation that exceeds his ability to control himself.

Some recent cases which received significant media attention have given rise to concerns over the application of the defence of provocation. Some have suggested that the criminal law in this area condones violent behaviour by men against women and excuses extreme violence provoked by insults or injury relating to a person's sexuality or masculinity.

The Minister of Justice is well aware of these cases and of the growing public criticism of the legal rules that govern provocation, and she is taking a very serious look at these issues.

A number of groups and individuals, including the former Law Reform Commission of Canada, have drawn our attention to related issues and have asked that we restrict the use of that legal defence.

The criticism primarily has to do with the fact that the historical origins of this defence still form the basis for its use before the courts, and that current rules may not reflect modern values and ideals.

At the same time it must be stated that support for the abolition of provocation is not universal at this time. Other groups have recommended expansion of the defence, such as the Canadian Bar Association, on the basis that human frailty should be recognized by criminal law.

It is clear that there is a great deal of disagreement over the proper scope of the defence of provocation in modern Canadian society. Any move toward limiting this defence must be done carefully and with due consideration of all the options and the potential consequences of each of these actions.

As I mentioned, the Department of Justice is following up on the requests for a reform and on the change in the public's perception of the law on provocation, and it has conducted a careful review of the issues and various options for reform.

The Minister of Justice also met with provincial and territorial justice ministers to discuss this specific issue, and the federal and provincial justice officials are working together to determine the feasibility of the various options for reform.

In an effort to better understand how Canadians feel about this issue, the Department of Justice released a discussion paper in the summer of 1998 which formed the basis of public consultations. I am glad to hear that the hon. member also did a consultation in her own riding. The department is currently reviewing responses submitted by individuals and interested groups.

The minister is committed to ensuring that the law reflects modern values and works fairly for all Canadians. The law on provocation is very complex, as I said earlier, and is also tied to other areas of criminal law, in particular to the law of self-defence, adding further complexity to the task of reforming Criminal Code defences and again highlighting the need for an in-depth study before making changes.

In my opinion, the hon. member's motion to abolish the legal defence of provocation is premature.

Reforming the law on provocation is important, as I said earlier, to the Minister of Justice. She has taken the steps necessary at this time to ensure that any amendments will reflect and respond to the views and values of Canadians. Consultations have been done. We have finished the consultations and we are reviewing what options we will take.

Criminal CodePrivate Members' Business

6:45 p.m.

Reform

Garry Breitkreuz Reform Yorkton—Melville, SK

Mr. Speaker, while I commend all the members for their work in representing their constituents and while I commend all members for their efforts to make Canada's laws better, I really cannot agree with the motion introduced by the hon. member.

She made the point that this is a women's issue and I immediately remember reading the paper put out by the justice department. Here is what the justice department's own figures show, that this really is not a women's issue. In fact, it is the opposite.

The Department of Justice's own research shows that in 64% of the cases where a man killed a woman the defence of being provoked was rejected. In the cases where men were killed by women 43% of the cases rejected this defence. Obviously women benefit more than men from this law.

I too consider carefully what my petitioners are telling me. Tens of thousands of petitioners have written to me with their concerns about the government's gun registration bill, the defunding of abortions, parental rights and property rights. I have introduced private member's bills and motions on these issues and I am not as fortunate as the hon. member for Yukon to have one of my bills or motions made a votable item. Perhaps my bills and motions are not closely aligned with the agenda of the Liberal Party. I have personally introduced petitions with more than 43,000 signatures calling on the government to repeal Bill C-68, the Firearms Act, but the government continues to ignore these requests by Canadians.

Why do the Liberals respond to issues from some petitioners and not others? Maybe the government will listen and act if the Liberals happen to agree with the petitioners.

Putting politics aside, I am pleased to be given the opportunity to participate in this debate about the defence of provocation. I hope to expand the debate about the need to retain self-defence sections of the Criminal Code as they are currently written.

The first thing I did when I saw this motion was to reread section 232 of the Criminal Code. The justice department claims this section has remained virtually unchanged since 1892. My initial reaction is to reject any demands to abolish a law that has been serving Canadians for so long. I do not have a closed mind about this but it makes me very wary. The longer the law has been in force is directly proportional to the level and seriousness of the debate the House should have about the abolition of such an old and fundamental defence.

From the synopsis in the Criminal Code it is clear that the interpretation and application of the defence of provocation has not remained static. Many cases before the courts have set legal precedents to determine the sufficiency of evidence to raise this defence, the nature of the objective test of the term ordinary person, the instructions or charging of a jury, the applications of this defence to attempted murder, the definition of self-induced provocation, and constitutional considerations. This section of the Criminal Code has been in a constant state of change by the judicial process, as it should be.

Let us look at the hon. member's Motion No. 265. It is not simply a motion to have a legislative committee investigate or review the defence of provocation. If it were, we might be able to support it. If the House approves this motion, it directs the committee to prepare and bring a bill to abolish the legal defence of provocation contained in section 232 of the Criminal Code of Canada. I cannot accept that.

Not even the justice department's own consultation paper, “Reforming Criminal Code Defences: Provocation, Self-Defence and Defence of Property” released last year goes that far. The justice department's paper asks for public input on a range of nine options with respect to the defence of provocation.

I will list these nine options so they are on the record for Hansard : to abolish the defence of provocation; to reform the defence of provocation by removing the phrase “in the heat of passion”; to replace the term “wrongful act” with “unlawful act”; to remove the ordinary person test to reflect the mixed subjective-objective test; to reform the defence of expanding the “suddenness” requirement; to reform the defence so that it is not available in cases of spousal homicides; to reform the defence so that it is not available in cases where the victim asserts his or her charter protected rights; to reform the defence to limit it to situations where excessive force was used in self-defence; to leave the Criminal Code provisions on the provocation defence exactly as they are.

Before the House can support this motion, each of these nine options has to be seriously considered and debated. Eight of the options proved unworkable beyond any doubt. That is what has to happen and that is why we cannot pass this motion. The justice consultation paper even outlined the pros and cons for each of these options.

The duty of the House before we approve a motion to abolish the defence of provocation would be to look at each of the arguments for and against abolition. It would be reform or no change to section 232. We would have to be convinced that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. We would have to examine each of the arguments against abolition or reform and rule on each.

Look at the justice department's own arguments against abolition as stated in the department's consultation paper. The defence of provocation might be useful for women in situations of domestic violence who kill in self-defence but with excessive force in response to the provocation of physical or verbal abuse. That is a very important point. There could be an increase in acquittals by juries that no longer have the alternative to a murder condemnation in cases where they view the accused as morally less worthy of blame. Murder might be considered an inappropriate term for killing under provocation. The reasons to abolish the provocation defence put forward by my hon. colleague from Yukon do not adequately address these arguments raised by the Justice Department, let alone the arguments that have yet to be raised by the legal community and the general public.

Finally, I want to comment about the tendency of some to clamour for changing or abolishing a law because of the circumstances of one case. For every case the member raises which seems to support abolition, I could rebut her position with another court case that supports the opposite view.

For example, last year in my home province a 29 year old, James Allan Tomlinson, was sentenced to life imprisonment with no chance of parole for 10 years for the second degree murder of a 67 year old farmer, Stacey Clark. Mr. Tomlinson alleged that Mr. Clark grabbed his genitals and that this provoked Mr. Tomlinson to stomp Mr. Clark to death, breaking most of the bones in his chest.

Tomlinson claimed that he should be found guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter because he did not intentionally kill Mr. Clark. Justice John Kelbuc shot down the argument, saying the defence of provocation was not intended to create an open season on homosexuals who act unlawfully. We have an example of a case that completely contradicts the examples given by the hon. member.

I firmly believe the facts of each of these seemingly contradictory cases are best left in the hands of judges and juries. If mistakes in the law are made, these individual cases are best left in the hands of crown prosecutors and provincial attorneys general to appeal all the way to the supreme court if necessary. If the supreme court rules contrary to the wishes of parliament or the people, then we must amend the law. So far this has not happened.

The Supreme Court of Canada had the opportunity to review a case on defence of provocation as recently as 1996. I quote from an article that appeared in the February 19, 1996 issue of Western Report :

Chief Justice Cory clarified when it [section 232] can be invoked. There is an objective and a subjective test. The former determines whether the insult was severe enough to deprive the killer of his self-control. The latter requires that his subsequent response was sudden, before his passion cooled. Prior to leaving this defence with a jury, the judge must find some evidence of provocation. It is then up to the jury to determine if the defence holds up under the facts. The jury must take into consideration the age, sex, and racial origin of the accused, to determine whether an “ordinary person” of reasonable self-control would, under similar circumstances, be provoked by the act or insult in question. The supreme court also endorsed for the first time the finding of a lower court that the history of the relationship between the victim and perpetrator should also be considered.

Mr. Justice Cory stated in his judgment:

Obviously, events leading to the break-up of the marriage can never warrant taking the life of another. Affairs cannot justify murder. Still any recognition of human frailties must take into account that these very situations may lead to insults that could give rise to provocation. The good sense of jurors will undoubtedly lead them to consider all the facts, including the presence of a loaded gun in the car.

This does not sound like a section of the criminal code that has outlived its usefulness. I will vigorously oppose this motion. I hope all members of the House will take these arguments into consideration that I have presented and make their decisions to support or oppose this motion.

I compliment the member for Yukon for raising this issue. It has been very good for me to do the research and to find out the background about this. We really should have legislation before the House that can be debated. Some expert witnesses could then be called and we could spend our time debating the legislation. As this motion is worded, I cannot support it.