Thank you, Mr. Chair. You have come at the right time because I was hoping to be able to put some questions to our guests, whom I want to thank.
As Mr. Albas noted, the people who introduced Bill C-273 are well-intentioned, but I think this bill poses quite a serious legal problem. I am not sure that this bill, as worded, can achieve its objectives.
I believe I clearly understood your arguments regarding prevention. Incidentally, to help Mr. Belsey understand the joke that was made a little earlier, since it is hard to understand everything over the telephone, Mr. Morin is doing an outstanding job on the issue, and I believe we are all a little more aware of the cyberbullying issue as a result of the motion he introduced calling for a national study and as a result of Dr. Fry's bill.
The devil is always in the details, as I always say. We are preparing to amend the Criminal Code. However, I do not agree with my colleagues opposite, and, like some of our guests, I am not convinced that adding words that I believe are already implied will cause any major problems. The definitions contained in section 264 respecting criminal harassment refer to other means. We know very well that the courts generally supplement less specific terminology to adjust it to various existing technologies.
One thing in our Liberal colleague's bill surprises me somewhat. It merely adds words without creating any new offence as such in the Criminal Code. Nor does it create any new sentence. You probably have not seen them, but I have examined the amendments that will be brought forward. The amendments pose the same problems as the bill itself.
My view differs from those of our guests on one point. I do not think this will make any difference for young offenders. I may ask you that question, but that may take more than five minutes. I thought it was important to make it clear that this would also apply to adults. Nearly all our witnesses who have spoken about bullying and cyberbullying among young people and about the approach that we should take are aware of this. I was very pleased to hear my colleague Mr. Goguen tell us about restorative justice because we have been talking about that for years now in connection with various bills, particularly when they focus on young people.
However, the Criminal Code will apply to everyone in the same way. Bullying is a fact. I seriously wonder whether we should not ensure that this appears in the Criminal Code in order to send a message. I do not think that would be very complicated. It will probably not solve all the problems. You mainly talked about bullying among young people, but not that much about bullying among adults.