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The amendment to the criminal code act was also debated in the Senate. This bill expands the definition of aggravated assault and increases the penalty to further protect persons such as public officers, prosecutors, and the media.
In December when the bill had its second reading in the House, Collet area rep, Patrick Faber, said the bill was draconian. Today in the Senate, Michael Peyrefitte has similar sentiments.
Michael Peyrefitte, UDP Senator
"What this is saying, pretty much, is that I don't even have to threaten a public officer, I don't even have to threaten a peace officer, all that peace officer has to do is determine that what I saw as well in my own yard with my friends drinking rum that I can go to jail for that. And that Madam President is what I find completely and utterly unacceptable. It says any person who uses any threatening, okay fine, abusive, okay, profane, obscene, and this is where you really lose me, indecent, because then who defines indecent? What may be indecent for you may not be indecent for me, especially if I'm in my home, if I'm in my yard, whether calculated to lead to a breach of peace or not. So if I'm using indecent language, I don't even have to be threatening the officers listed here, I don't even have to be threatening them. I could just be in their presence, they're on duty, pass my house, hear me in my yard using what they interpret to be indecent language and I could go to jail for three years for that? Madam President, I don't know about the public, but I cuss a lot of bad word privately, when we hang out and we talk a lot of things that may be determine as indecent in a friendly environment, you can go to jail for that."
And Senator Courtenay cleared up those concerns by explaining that the law as it currently stands is a lot harsher than what the amendment says.
Eamon Courtenay, Leader of Government Business
The law today say if you use to any person, in the hearing of any person, any threatening, abusive, profane, obscene, indecent, insulting words or behavior whether calculated to lead to the breach of peace or not such several offenses being committed in a street or public place or in a private enclosure or ground is guilty of an offense. What Senator Peyreffite described is an example of having a BBQ, drinking with his friends, behaving the way he usually behaves, he would be guilty of an offense today. Now let us look at what the bill proposes to do. It says, first of all, we are going to repeal the provision I just read. Now look at what the proposal says, a person who uses any threatening, abusive, profane, obscene, indecent, insulting words or behavior, which is in the law at the moment, whether calculated to lead to the breach of peace or not such several offenses being committed in a street or public place or in a private enclosure or ground, which is what is in the law at the moment, whether directly or within the hearing of. Now recall what I read, the law as it stands today does not have any category does not have any clause, anybody who does these things, and anybody hear it anywhere it's an offense. There is now these limiting words. If you do it within the hearing of a person acting as a judicial officer, legal officer, or a peace officer, so it has to be, not a police officer walking down the road, he has to be performing his functions and this happens, then an offense is committed.
