You are asking what does a particular phrase in legislation mean.
As was explained to me when our company was amalgamated into a USA owned entity, and I got to meet with my peers at various USA operations - totally different approaches to that. In Saskatchewan, we would commonly ask which ever authority enforced that law - what does it mean in these circumstances? Whatever he said was actually pure B.S., since it was not actually binding on any one else in his role - but we went for years doing that - if the Mine Inspector said it was okay, that is how we proceeded. Found out when Inspectors got changed, what the previous guy said, did not always match up with what the current guy thought. I expect the exact same thing can happen if you ask an RCMP officer, or a Game Warden, and then run into a different one.
Versus my USA counterparts - they would ask their company lawyer what it meant - that lawyer was the one who would be defending them in front of a judge.
In both Canada and USA, it will be a Judge who decides what it means - but there will be some authority who decides whether to charge you with a violation in the first place - that gets you in front of a judge - and then, in front of that Judge, there will be at least two lawyers trying to convince that judge which way to rule on the facts of that incident - one - your "defence lawyer " will try to argue that what you did was "on side" the words - he/she will argue that you are "innocent"; the other lawyer - often a prosecutor, will try to convince the judge that what you did was not on side of the words - that you are "guilty". Was very apparent to some of us, that "politics of the day" enter into the decision whether or not you will get charged, in the first place, or less often, which way the Judge will rule. In the end, it just does not matter what the Inspector (enforcing authority), what you, or what your lawyer "think" or "feel" the words mean - it will be the decision of that Judge, that "counts", for what does the words mean in the specific facts of the case. I think.
At least in Canada, that first Judge is often referred to as the "trier of fact" - a big part of what he does is to document and record what actually occurred - the "facts" upon which he applied the words of the law. Then, that is all subject to "appeal" - there is usually a whole hierarchy of Appeal Courts - usually they become panels of judges - not just one judge - and usually a "majority" have to decide whether or not that lower level judge was correct in interpreting the words to those "facts". You might disagree with their decision - is up to your lawyer to find an error made by that lower level, for the next level of Appeal Court to "fix". Is typical that some Court decisions become "binding" - is no more choice about what the words mean, for specific facts - and all involved - defence lawyers, prosecuting lawyers and Judges, (and, probably you and the general public) all have access to the previous precedents, how similar cases were dealt with, previously. That is all likely theoretical and idealistic - is considerable evidence that there is much "interference" in that process.
For some people, it is confusing that what someone else "got away with" doing, or what you read on an anonymous Internet Chatroom like this one, is not likely to be accepted by most judges as "evidence" of your innocence. If 15 cars are driving at 120 km/hr in a 100 km/hr speed zone, and you are the one pulled over and charged with speeding, what the other 14 drivers were doing, may not be relevant, at all, to the charge of whether you were exceeding the 100 km speed limit, or not. They "got away with it" - you did not. There might be good and valid reasons why you were doing what you were doing, but does not change the "fact" that you were going 120 km/h in a 100 km/h speed zone.
