Justice committee  I've watched your questioning in other hearings and I have reflected on it. I counted, actually.... In the Supreme Court, they said at least two or three times that mere intoxication is not a defence for assault and sexual assault, so in terms of using a complicated area of law to correct misinformation on Twitter or other social media, that is not on.

Justice committee  I do indeed. The problem is that the Supreme Court of Canada, in Brown, specifically addressed that particular situation. Professor Sheehy was a witness before the committee at the time, after Daviault. We know very well that a number of experts have come out to say that alcohol will very seldom get you to that stage, but the Supreme Court said we're not going to rule it out, either.

Justice committee  As a matter of fact, it was Professor Grant, so I'll allow her to answer.

Justice committee  I'd defer to Professor Grant on that because she's the expert on the reconstruction.

Justice committee  In my past life, I was a practitioner in Saskatchewan, and it's kind of incomprehensible to me that the way you counteract misinformation on social media is that you enact amendments to a very complicated area of law. There are quite a few other ways that one can engage in public education.

Justice committee  Certainly, and I would defer to professors Sheehy and Grant on this. One problem with that is that you have the Supreme Court in Brown using risk of harm and risk of extreme intoxication disjunctively. We're using it conjunctively here, where you're essentially saying that the Crown has to prove both.

Justice committee  I think the point that both Professor Grant and Professor Sheehy are making is that you need to get this right, because the potential consequences of getting it wrong are very serious. They're not only in terms of reported cases. We've told you that there are 86 reported cases, with most of them coming out even after section 33.1 was enacted.

Justice committee  I think you'll be hearing from LEAF, so you can ask them those questions on whom they consulted for their analysis and upon what basis they made it. All I can tell you is what we did. Professors Grant and Sheehy are before you. There are others we consulted. I'm rather partial, because Professor Sheehy was my master's supervisor.

Justice committee  I don't want to hog the microphone, but I can respond to that. Again, just to reiterate, the court said that lane A wasn't a viable option of creating a stand-alone defence. The reason it said this wasn't a viable option is that the objectives of protecting women and girls, and also having enough accountability....

Justice committee  Again, they cited one academic who said there were four ways. We proposed other ways as well that we believe are constitutional. Again, it's up to you to make that assessment based on what we're telling you might be some of the effects of getting this wrong—

Justice committee  I mean, we were consulted by a junior member of the Department of Justice on June 14. We provided a very detailed proposal to them by 5 p.m. that day, but of course the first reading of Bill C-28 happened on June 17. The horse was already out of the barn, at that point. It was “thank you for your input”, but it was obvious that it wasn't taken into account in any way whatsoever.

Justice committee  I understand that she's under some time constraints, so it may be that you decide to direct the first round of your questions to her, but I leave that to you. Thank you very much.

Justice committee  Mr. Chair, if it's all right, I would like to go first. Good afternoon, Honourable Chair and members of the committee. My name is Dr. Kerri Froc and I'm an associate professor at the faculty of law at the University of New Brunswick. My area of research is constitutional law and I specialize in women's rights.