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Justice committee  The reasons provision applies only to proposed subparagraph 732.1(2)(a.l)(ii), so in exceptional circumstances. That would reduce the number of cases. In a busy trial court that's dealing specifically with domestic pleas or domestic matters—and there's a court set up just for those things—there may be a handful of cases a day to which this applies.

November 7th, 2013Committee meeting

Michael Spratt

Justice committee  I suppose they could. It certainly would be advantageous to have a process or exception to allow victims to obtain court transcripts at no cost. That would be, I think, something very supportive. There are some technological measures put in place right here in Ottawa that allow same-day access to the oral recordings and you can actually take them home for a very nominal fee.

November 7th, 2013Committee meeting

Michael Spratt

Justice committee  Thank you. Good morning, Mr. Chair, and good morning to members of this committee. My name is Michael Spratt and I'm a criminal defence lawyer. I practise locally here in Ottawa at the firm of Webber Goldstein Abergel. I'm here today on behalf of the Criminal Lawyers' Association.

November 7th, 2013Committee meeting

Michael Spratt

Justice committee  Yes, I definitely prefer the language as it is now; it's more restrictive. It's the CLA's position that any legislation, especially criminal legislation, should be as narrowly defined and restrictive as is possible to address the ills it seeks to prevent. Again, I am quite pleased to be here today supporting that section of the bill as put forward.

March 6th, 2013Committee meeting

Michael Spratt

Justice committee  We're in agreement with that. The more data that citizens and Parliament have the better when evaluating extraordinary provisions such as this, especially if you turn your attention to the previous reports prepared under that section and look at the difficulty and the work required to parse the information in that data and have it in a manageable and useful form for the citizens and Parliament.

March 6th, 2013Committee meeting

Michael Spratt

Justice committee  I've never been a member of a police force and I can't speak to institutional policies. It would perhaps be useful for the committee to have information about how these things are normally done. But from the cases I've seen, and from my view of the legislation, which is very extraordinary legislation, the additional oversight of specifying that a supervisor or senior officer is the one to make the decisions, for all practical purposes, that is probably what's going to happen.

March 6th, 2013Committee meeting

Michael Spratt

Justice committee  I'll stay to answer, for sure.

March 6th, 2013Committee meeting

Michael Spratt

Justice committee  Nothing comes to mind. In the wiretap cases that I've dealt with, all have been offences listed under section 183. I can't look back and put another hat on. I can't put a prosecutor's hat on or a police officer's hat on and say that if only we had had wiretaps for these other offences, things would have been different.

March 6th, 2013Committee meeting

Michael Spratt

Justice committee  Well, practically this section isn't required for constitutionality; it was discussed a little bit in some of the cases that the Supreme Court did an analysis of. Frankly, with these types of orders.... For the last wiretap case I did, the authorizations were from 2006. If the report were never done, I don't know whether there would really be a remedy for an accused, since it's not strictly required in order to make the section constitutional.

March 6th, 2013Committee meeting

Michael Spratt

Justice committee  Ultimately, the discretion about how broad and narrow the Supreme Court seems to be saying is within the purview of Parliament. We're supportive of Parliament taking a narrow and focused, and as least over broad definition as possible when it comes to criminal law. I don't think, for all practical purposes, it makes very much of a difference.

March 6th, 2013Committee meeting

Michael Spratt

Justice committee  It took 20 years, from 1993 until the Supreme Court rendered its decision last year, for the constitutional problems inherent in this section as it was to come before the courts. In 20 more years, I don't know whether I will be practising criminal law; maybe I'll be relaxing on a beach somewhere.

March 6th, 2013Committee meeting

Michael Spratt

Justice committee  I do have some concerns. In subclause 5(3), proposed subsection195( 2.1) requires in its paragraph (a) a reporting of the number of interceptions made; then you have a proposed paragraph after that requiring a reporting of the number of people against whom proceedings were commenced.

March 6th, 2013Committee meeting

Michael Spratt

Justice committee  Thank you very much. My name is Michael Spratt. I am a criminal defence lawyer who practises here in Ottawa. I practise exclusively criminal defence work, and as such, I've done extensive work involving intercepted communications. I'm here representing the Criminal Lawyers' Association, or the CLA.

March 6th, 2013Committee meeting

Michael Spratt