Public Safety committee  In respect of civil remedies for, say, charter breaches, which can often happen or at least be alleged in detention situations, the remedies require going to court for those kinds of things if they're serious enough, but those avenues are blocked.

Public Safety committee  Now, someone may try to get around it somehow, but the bill has set up a regime where it's not obvious how you would do that.

Public Safety committee  Certainly, with any act of Parliament that has constitutional problems, if someone goes to court and brings those problems up, it's possible for a court to say that Parliament did it wrong and to show how it could be remedied. Just because there may be someone out there with the

Public Safety committee  We try to avoid these things on the front end. They may get to court and find that because of the State Immunity Act there's no liability on the part of the United States. Moreover, it could be a very expensive judicial process to try to strike down the portion of the bill that s

Public Safety committee  Thank you very much for the question. Mr. Chair, of course, we await being told that we can speak rather than jumping in. It isn't an either-or, and this is the message we have heard. With great respect to Ms. van Vugt, indeed we support virtually everything that she is saying

Public Safety committee  We recognize that may not be a matter for the act or even for regulations, but, for policy, we think that the training is critically important. I mean, Canadian officers who get steeped in this stuff get it wrong. We don't want several hours of training from CBSA. We don't nece

Public Safety committee  I don't understand the options as being having pre-clearance or continuing to have pre-clearance. I have not heard any indication from the government that, had none of this happened, pre-clearance would have been withdrawn. As we understand it, this was a condition precedent to g

Public Safety committee  Sure, we would be happy to do that. As a principal matter, we think it should be amended so that there isn't a power for a strip search. The agreement may say things about that. The minister himself has said he thinks it would be exceedingly rare that there wouldn't be a Canadi

Public Safety committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the committee for inviting us. I think we're all agreed that customs pre-clearance is a huge benefit to Canadians, and its expansion would make those benefits available to even more Canadians and, of course, to enterprises. Nevertheless, a

Public Safety committee  We would be happy to return for questioning, if you like, by video or something. We would rather not fly back for the questions. The law also insulates the United States from most claims. You can't sue Canada. What about the U.S.? Subclause 39(1) states that civil proceedings ca

Justice committee  It's a critical problem. I think a lot of the other problems flow from that. It's not just a question of saying let's throw more money at it. However, many of the problems that we could enumerate, such as the cut-off being too low or it being administered in one way or another th

Justice committee  As I said in my testimony, sir, certainly here in B.C. we look wistfully at the situation in Ontario, but folks in Ontario have been before you and I completely support their submission that they have a great deal of difficulty as well. If I were to say where within Canada I hope

Justice committee  I'm not sure it would exacerbate the funding problem. I think the bigger cost problem, and there have been studies to show this, is the cost that flows through the system to health care, to the criminal system, and to elsewhere in the system when a family law problem turns into a

Justice committee  That would be one way of doing it, setting up some legislation around that at the federal level. You may hear from provinces that they don't prefer that approach. I think there's a lot of scope for the federal government to exercise leadership in conversations, and in discussions

Justice committee  Thanks very much for the question. I can say what the Canadian Bar Association has had to say, which we subscribe to as well, and that is that essential legal needs are those needs or legal problems that put in jeopardy someone's liberty, personal safety, security, health, hous