Public Safety committee  I will begin my presentation in French, and then continue in English. I want to thank the committee for inviting the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. The association has existed for almost 50 years, and its mandate still consists in taking a principled stand on issues facing society.

Public Safety committee  I invite the committee to take into account the very wise remarks of Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, QC, from England, who was asked to review the work of the committee that had been charged with reviewing the anti-terrorism measures adopted in the U.K. I put it to you that his approach....

Public Safety committee  Yes, I think there are certainly differences in the details of the different aspects of it.

Public Safety committee  Yes, although what is interesting and what I was trying to point out is that the review in the U.K. was indeed to reduce the powers that had been used in this context. The report was to change the way in which control orders were being used in the—

Public Safety committee  I'd like to respond to your question about this offence.

Public Safety committee  Sure. I personally am very concerned. My previous work was on victims defence work, so I think.... The idea that there's opposition between civil libertarians and victims is not, I think, the right reflection, because indeed nobody wants the wrong person to be caught, or the system not to work.

Public Safety committee  Well, actually, you are distorting the normal practice of the Criminal Code. In our view, the use of the regular Criminal Code is better for many reasons: police officers know how to deal with this; they are trained in this; judges know how to behave in this. So the way in which you may respond—and nobody's saying don't do anything—is to say we need continued training, continued resources, and continued investment in gathering evidence as opposed to minimizing the need for evidence and distorting the normal processes.

Public Safety committee  Well, there are a couple of things. I think if it does not...it must be bounded by safeguards. Part of the problem with not prosecuting and simply creating risk profiles and not using the Criminal Code is that you certainly lack the public scrutiny on it. You lack the oversight that judges do.

Public Safety committee  In my view, if you have an imminent peril, the investigative hearing is not going to be the way that the police officers are going to choose to go. I think because of the wait and the difficulty in managing the hearing, this will not be a useful tool. Part of the analysis here is that I think we should be ensuring that this is not just for show; that if the provisions are being put forward, we should make sure that they are necessary, because on their face they do violate the Constitution, so the burden is to establish that they are necessary and justifiable in a free and democratic society.

Public Safety committee  I think one of the issues would be whether the re-enactment of the provision will require judicial clarification. Why not prevent this going all the way up again?

Public Safety committee  We can agree to disagree in terms of what is the necessity here, but....

Public Safety committee  Yes, that's true, certainly. I'm saying that for the benefit of the Canadian public, I think your job as parliamentarians is to ensure that this teaching is not lost. My suggestion is that you should make sure that it's in the bill. It increases the transparency of it and—

Public Safety committee  In our view, if you do read the decision this way, you should put it in the act, because that's the danger, actually, of transforming the.... I mean, I'm saying this—

Public Safety committee  But the decision does not say; it implies it. It says that we will read it as though it has that protection against, which—

Public Safety committee  Yes.