Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the hon. member on her speech. She truly covered all the issues addressed in the bill.
The Bloc Quebecois supports this bill, but one particular point caught my attention. I am talking about the offences known as mens rea in Latin.
I get the impression, in reading the bill in its current form, that it will be extremely difficult to make the application of the bill truly effective in real situations.
I want to ask the hon. member a question. Would it not have been better to use the New Democratic Party's hypothesis relating to Bill C-284, which was introduced during the first session of the 37th Legislature? The suggestion then was that, rather than using mens rea , which is the requirement to prove intent above and beyond that required for criminal negligence, there could be a mechanism allowing for the burden of proof to be reversed.
In other words, once it is established that the employees of an organization have committed an act or made an omission leading to the commission of a crime, that organization would have to prove that it neither authorized nor tolerated such behaviour. Would this not be more effective and ensure that the desired results of the bill would be obtained? Given the bill's current wording, it is possible that the House will be called upon to amend the proposed legislation once it has been put to the test a few times.