Mr. Speaker, it was always my impression that the federal law lagged in some respects in terms of its ability to bite down and really hit the nail on the head.
There are reasons for that. When Ontario as a province created its registry, it did it as a province looking after its citizens in its own jurisdiction, not as a criminal law jurisdiction. It was able to go directly to the public purpose intended and describe things with great precision and make the thing work.
In Ottawa, federally, when we passed our legislation, we had to pass it under the screen of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the evolution of our criminal law. We needed, in every case where we constrained an individual liberty or freedom, to make a case, a justification for it. In some cases, the law was not procedurally robust enough.
The province has kind of had a bit of an edge. It did not have to worry about the court review of the legislation and the charter scrutiny in quite the same way that the federal government did. That is why we are on our third rewrite of this legislation, whereas the province saw what the problem was, legislated it and put something in place that the police community was comfortable with. As far as I can see, there has not been any abuse.
Hopefully, the federal legislation has caught up to where it should be, it will work and there will not be any abuse.