Mr. Speaker, that is a very good question that deserves a good answer and I will be quick to provide it.
There are several definitions for the term “journalist”. That was the most succinct one that I found. However, there is also an extremely important fact to be considered when we state: “anyone who assists such a person”. The idea is that if someone cannot obtain the information from the journalist, they may turn to the printer.
It is very important to protect the individuals who work with the journalist and who, through their jobs, as humble as they may be, may have knowledge of a secret source. These individuals may have seen, for example, notes on the journalist's desk or have information required for printing the newspaper.
Rather than considering each individual case—and I must admit that sometimes we found some expressions to be somewhat ridiculous—we opted for the expression, “anyone who assists such a person”. By accepting the rules of interpretation, namely that the words must always serve the obvious purpose of the law, this purpose must be to protect the source that could suffer retaliation if their name were to be disclosed, even by the housekeeper. In fact, the latter could have learned certain things by listening to a conversation between two people at some point.
Thus, we speak of any individual who works with the business and who would have access to these names. I believe that is how the courts would interpret it. That is why we decided to use this very simple expression which, when interpreted thus, is clear in concrete cases.