Justice committee  Well, there is an objective and a subjective component for it.

Justice committee  Yes. If, knowing that all of those factors were present, and you have three or more persons present with an intention to carry out a common purpose—and that's assessed on an objective basis—and the actions become tumultuous in the circumstances and those people choose to stay i

Justice committee  You're asking me to speculate how a court might turn its mind to it in a specific case?

Justice committee  It's not unusual for the police in this situation or in any other situation to have to bring their judgment and expertise to bear on the facts that present to them. This committee has heard lots of evidence already from some police witnesses about their experience in this area an

Justice committee  I believe the committee has heard some evidence to the effect of how the existing offences work now on riots and non-lawful assembly. Committing either of those offences is not being changed by Bill C-309.

Justice committee  Bill C-309 is not changing the elements that must be proven in either case. There is a distinction in terms of what must be shown, obviously, for either offence. The unlawful assembly offence in section 66 is a summary conviction offence; it's a lower-level type of offence. You

Justice committee  Again, you have to go back to the starting point, which is that the accused—

Justice committee  —has been convicted of having committed the offence. At the same time, if they are wearing a mask to conceal their identity, that's the additional part. You can't ignore the first step.

Justice committee  No, because if they have a lawful excuse—

Justice committee  —that would be why they're wearing it.

Justice committee  I can only assist the committee by looking at the plain language of the words used in the proposal before the committee, which is “wearing a mask or other disguise to conceal their identity without lawful excuse”. It's all relevant. If an individual, in the example that I think h

Justice committee  It's not to conceal their identity in that context. It's for a religious purpose.

Justice committee  Again, to come back to my earlier remarks, the proposals in Bill C-309 would only kick in if the offence of rioting or committing or participating in an unlawful assembly have already been made out. The offence is there. The question is that in the facts of the case, did the acc

Justice committee  The accused can point to, as I mentioned earlier.... It's not a reverse onus, but they would look for some credible evidence, or point to some credible evidence as to the reason why they might have been wearing a mask, or disguise, whatever. Then the burden is still on the crown

Justice committee  That would be a common sense interpretation of the words proposed by Bill C-309.