Canadian Heritage committee  I was just going to quickly pipe up, to make sure I don't take up all the time.

Canadian Heritage committee  Ombuds offices can do lots. Thank you.

Canadian Heritage committee  One of the most familiar ways to think of that is as a place that I see as very similar to the idea of duty of care: having a place where individuals have a way to talk about what their harm is in a way that perhaps has never been heard before. In how duty of care has been thought of in the past, in some of its other imaginings, it is that we have to be prepared to learn about a new type of relationship.

Canadian Heritage committee  I have it open here right now. Are there some specific sections you'd like me to go to?

Canadian Heritage committee  I must confess that, just because of the short amount of time I had to get prepared for this, I don't want to say I'll pass on that, but if I don't have enough time right now, I'd love to pass on that.

Canadian Heritage committee  That's a great question. At least what I found was really good about the process was the sense that everyone had a different type of expertise and everyone could be on the same page of all wanting something to happen. I found that keeping to our confidentiality and keeping to our goals meant that the impact on me, at least, was that there's not just going to be this bill that takes care of this issue.

Canadian Heritage committee  Okay.

Canadian Heritage committee  I think that's a great question. I'm going to keep the lawyer's hat on, though, in answering it.

Canadian Heritage committee  One of the things I would like to be put forward in whatever happens...and that's the way I'm going to put it: “whatever happens”. I might say this too because of your professional work cap, but I really appreciate the idea of having some functions that are very similar to what have been trends in administrative law.

Canadian Heritage committee  We very regularly were able to talk about the United Kingdom, the EU and Australia. I was not at all a person who could contribute in those specific moments, but I would say, particularly with the U.K., I found myself thinking that how we were being influenced by what we could have done was based on, perhaps, the imperfections, if not shifts of things, that we could learn from what was happening in the United Kingdom.

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you very much. I want to be blunt. I don't have a horse in this race. I want to also say, in my attempt to make my words brief, I was also a member of the advisory panel. I also want to say that we didn't agree about everything. We were very congenial and, I think, very thankful for everyone's contributions, but we had mixed views on things.

Canadian Heritage committee  I'm going to tweak again. I see it as “responsibly” as compared to “responsibility”, because in law and legislation there can be that word as well. I see it as a way to prevent some problems that especially come up in civil actions. I see it as a very comparative idea to, for example, duty of care in negligence.

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you. I'm a law professor at the University of Ottawa and a law professor on leave at Osgoode Hall law school. I belong to the Law Society of Ontario. I specialize in the history of laws, the impact of laws on marginalized peoples, law and economics, and tort law. I've taught at the university level for 26 years.