—and I'm also saying that the amendments as proposed would not add clarity. In fact, I think they would add confusion down the road.
The bill, unfortunately, was not well drafted, and when I questioned Ms. Fry about particular circumstances on cases where police said they could not investigate, I found she did not have a particularly good answer with respect to the existing provisions in the Criminal Code.
When I look at, for example, section 264, it talks about criminal harassment, and it talks about things like “repeatedly communicating with, either directly or indirectly”. I find it very difficult to accept the rationale put forward that if a police officer goes with a search warrant before a judge to say they need information from an ISP, that this is the information that's been posted on the Internet or on a cellphone or somewhere else, and clearly this is a form of communication, the judge is going to say, “No, that's not a form of communication. I'm not going to grant you your search warrant.” I don't think that's going to happen. Judges read things into legislation and statutes all the time. I don't think they have to travel down the road very far with these particular sections to be able to get there. I also think that her definition of “computer” is inconsistent with other definitions in the Criminal Code, and we shouldn't be putting things in the Criminal Code just for the sake of putting them in the Criminal Code.
That's why I'd be supporting this motion as stated.