Why 8850 Form Legislation 2016-2023

Music, good afternoon, and welcome colleagues, invited guests, and members of the general public who are following today's proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs. Today, we continue our consideration of Bill C-16, an act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code. This is our last day of hearings on the bill, and we will move to clause by clause consideration tomorrow. With us today for the first hour are Jordan B. Peterson, professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, and Mr. Jared Brown, lead counsel from the D Jared Brown Professional Corporation. Thank you, gentlemen, for being here. You both have up to five minutes for opening statements. Mr. Peterson, I believe you're going to lead off. Yes, sir. Before today, I think the first thing I'd like to bring up is that it's not obvious when considering a matter of this sort what level of analysis is appropriate. If you're reading any given document, you can look at the words, phrases, sentences, or the complete document, or you can look at the broader context within which it is likely to be interpreted. When I first encountered Bill C-16 and its surrounding policies, it seemed to me that the appropriate level of analysis was to look at the context of interpretation surrounding the bill. This is what I did when I went and scoured the Ontario Human Rights Commission webpages and examined its policies. I did that because, at that point, the Department of Justice had clearly indicated on their website, in a link that was later taken down, that Bill C-16 would be interpreted within the precedents already established by the Ontario Human Rights Commission. So, when I looked on the website, I thought, well, there are broader issues at stake here. And I...