Perhaps I can respond to a few comments, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, I don't think it's about juxtaposing proposed paragraphs 5(a) and (b); it's about juxtaposing proposed paragraphs 5(a), (b), (c), (d), and (e). As we've heard from legal counsel, you cannot read any one of these in isolation. Taken as a whole, they are to speak to the balance that we're trying to achieve. These are the criteria, (a) through (e), that we're setting out to achieve the national policy. My general sense, from hearing and reading what was drafted in previous bills and what has arrived here for us to consider, is that there has been....
Ms. Borges pointed out--rightly, I think--the strong bent towards competition and market forces in the wake of deregulation, in the wake of CN's devolution, in the wake of airport authorities' devolution, and so on and so forth. I think the concern manifested by a number of us here is that proposed paragraph 5(b) might be the operative paragraph where we can strike a bit more balance. But in terms of (b), I'm more concerned, to be frank with you, about whether or not the federal government here is fettering and limiting unnecessarily its powers by talking about only regulating, only making strategic public interventions, when they're necessary.
When they're necessary for what? Well, as it says here, “to achieve economic, environmental or social outcomes that cannot be achieved satisfactorily by competition and market forces”. That would mean, for example, that if the federal government wanted to invest in light rail, say, in five major cities, it would have to somehow meet the test of it being necessary, because the market itself isn't providing enough funding or isn't supplying the transit systems we need for five major cities.
I don't know why, as drafters, it was necessary for you to fetter, in my view, the federal government's powers, to limit those powers, in the policy. This is one of the core criteria we're going to use to achieve the policy objective--I think that's what it says in English--and I'm just trying to understand why we have, in this operative passage, “only if they are necessary”. This is a new test that was not in the previous draft....
Am I mistaken? It was in the previous bill?