Good afternoon and welcome, sir.
I view as important the elements of transparency, predictability, enforcement mechanisms that you describe as “robust,” consultations and the need to inform investors of the outcome of those consultations. Last week, if I'm not mistaken, Industry Canada provided us with a document on the Minister's decision that supports the importance of these elements.The document stated the following—and this came from the Minister: “The Minister's decision is an exercise of discretion and final, not subject to appeal. Process may be appealed to the Federal Court.” According to this, transparency is eminently important and mandatory. It enables us to get as much information as possible on issues of safety, competitiveness and confidentiality, of course. I think that these are important elements.
The act is currently before the committee. Which elements do you think it would be important to improve? You talked about what's working well, but what provisions of the act require improvement? Messrs. Caron and Coles also gave us a few suggestions. Competition and investments are vastly different considerations. Therefore, there should be guidelines not only for encouraging takeovers, but also for attracting new investments and encouraging the setting up of new companies. Mr. Caron talked to us about telecommunications, which is an obvious example. A representative of Globalive, a foreign company, actually went to the Federal Court.
What can we do to improve the Investment Canada Act even further and to make sure that net benefits are known and understood in a transparent way?