Mr. Speaker, that is quite an amazing question and not a simple one. My speculation, because I am not a lawyer, would be that his thesis certainly would have some validity. As he says, a vertebrate, other than a human being and any other animal that has the capacity to feel pain, does not take a giant leap from that point to where he has arrived.
As I indicated in my presentation, I am concerned primarily with the fact that we are going into uncharted and unknown territory with the bill. The examples I used, with which I am personally familiar from my critic role, are such that I think I have expanded to the point of this being a pattern of the government where it creates a skeleton, does not know where the skeleton will go, does not put any muscle, sinew, fat or skin on the skeleton, and then lets the courts work it out. Therein lies the problem.
Although we sometimes accuse the courts in Canada of being activists, in fact they are not activists. They are simply doing the bidding of the Liberals where the Liberals are deficient, incapable of bringing forward proper, meaningful, well defined legislation, the courts are simply being given a carte blanche. As a matter of fact they have been given a job as a result of Prime Minister Trudeau and the charter and the whole charter industry that we presently have.
Certainly that was a very profound question from my colleague. I have no idea where it will go but it is certainly food for thought.