Mr. Speaker, first I want to thank my colleague, who has been in the House for quite some time, for his contribution to this study and to the legislation we are debating here today.
As I said in my comments, we did arrive at a definition. As is often the case in committee, there is testimony that goes through the whole spectrum. Some witnesses felt there should not be a definition at all, but if there were, then the broader the better, and others put forward some suggestions as to what should be included in the definition.
If I could read it into the record again, the definition that was arrived at was:
any action, conduct or comment, including of a sexual nature, that can reasonably be expected to cause offence, humiliation or other physical or psychological injury or illness to an employee, including any prescribed action, conduct or comment.
We wanted to make sure that the definition was broad enough. If we are too specific within the legislation, the government would be handcuffed and may have to go back to change the legislation.
When we look at this particular issue, who would have thought five years ago that cyber-bullying in the Twittersphere would become an egregious platform for attacking and harassing individuals? Things change over the course of time.
We wanted to keep the definition broad enough to provide the continuum for unacceptable behaviours. Within the definition, we included that continuum as to what is deemed unacceptable.