Justice committee  Certainly in the long history of jurisprudence on who has jurisdiction over certain matters—because, as we know, there are no bright lines drawn in sections 91 and 92 of the 1867 Constitution Act—there has been a predominant theme of recognizing, as the words of the Constitution

Justice committee  Thank you very much.

Justice committee  I just want to add that normally the purpose of the human rights anti-discrimination legislation is remedial, so it's primarily focused on the kinds of remedies that bring the parties together and reconcile them in terms of what the action was as opposed to being a penal kind of

Justice committee  I'll say first that I'm not a criminal law expert, so I am here largely to address some of the other elements of the bill. Second, on principle, it would be necessary to look at the kind of behaviour and the severity of the action that's being taken with respect to the contract

Justice committee  I would begin by saying that, as you know, Mr. Chair, it's not my personal view or the view of any of those who report to me with respect to the legal analysis that may have been applied or that will be relevant to the question of moving forward to defend a piece of legislation t

Justice committee  It tends to be extremely context-specific. As my colleague mentioned, from our perspective, it was only early this fall that we started our outreach to talk specifically about the content of the bill with colleagues at our level in other jurisdictions.

Justice committee  The normal process for the development of policy across government that results in legislation would include within it outreach and consultations with provinces and territories as well as with stakeholders, civil society, and others. In the normal course of development of governm

Justice committee  The closest analogy I can come up with are the provisions in the Criminal Code that are not based on penalizing discrimination but are the hate crimes and hate speech provisions. These are also geared toward preventing very serious activity that would be based on similar grounds

Justice committee  As I understand it, the anti-spam legislation is not perceived as a criminal law power. It is a trade and commerce-based statute. It is based on compliance and heavy fines intended to stop deep pockets from carrying out certain kinds of activities.

Justice committee  I think we're probably straying into the realm of more detailed legal advice, as much as you have tried to structure it as a technical question. What I can say is that throughout the history of the jurisprudence on the criminal law, the Supreme Court has been quite clear that i

Justice committee  The provisions that were struck down were the ones that were geared towards putting certain restrictions on how the medical profession carried out its business in the area.

Justice committee  I think again we're probably getting into the realm of something that's more specific than what I am here for, which is to talk about the substance of the bill in technical terms. It would certainly be at the discretion of the minister and Attorney General of Canada to determine

Justice committee  I'm not in a position necessarily to put specific arguments on the table. I can tell you that there is a long history, both in the judicial committee of the Privy Council and in the Supreme Court, of looking at various times when Parliament has brought forward legislation that pu

Justice committee  I'm not going to be able to go into that level of detail. I do understand, for example, that Professor Ryder testified in the other place with respect to his views on how to support the constitutionality of the bill, so I could refer you to that.

Justice committee  Thank you very much. As you know, Mr. Chair, we're here to provide technical comments on the bill, not to provide advice to the committee. Thank you.