Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I think I'd point out that, first, in terms of our witnesses, and including today, there was recognition that the intent is a good intent. It's an honourable intent, and I don't want to see that intent cherry-picked away. I think it's extremely important that we don't lose that.
Secondly, the Legion, which was a very strong mixed opinion, made the point after saying those are their medals. And by the way, the amendments recognize that: all the family, right down through--we're not interfering with any of them. The family of the owner, the recipient, and the one awarded the medal--no one is being interfered with. That was part of what we'd tried to consider here.
But remember also that the Legion said they would prefer we go back and amend the act. That means they had recognition that they didn't want them sold, but by the way, they do recognize they're sold and protected under existing legislation, and therefore an amendment was conflicted in terms of what the message was.
What we're saying is we think it honours that whole concern—and we all want to make sure we do the right thing. This bill is, if you want to call it that, an introductory attempt. It certainly is an effort by the proponent to recognize that there are certain circumstances whereby.... It's not at all interfering with protecting, preserving, looking after, and honouring the rights of the award recipients, but rather where those fall through the cracks and no one seems to care, if we do nothing, nothing happens. Those disappear and we make no effort to keep them in Canada. That's the intent here, and to say it's on the high level that we're interfering with the award recipients I think is a false argument because that's not in this legislation. Certainly we believe the amendments have made an effort to try to close those gaps as much as possible.
I don't think for a moment that anybody working under this piece of legislation is going to try to do anything to interfere with the recipients of those awards, medals, and honours. None of us over here would ever want that to happen.
I think it's important, though, that we understand that when we started this effort with Mr. Schellenberger's proposal, it was agreed pretty well by everybody that it was a good intent to try to recognize that there are problems out there. That's why we strongly support what was put forward here, and we certainly brought forward amendments that we thought closed some of those gaps, made it more palatable, if you like, recognizing that nothing is perfect. But if we do nothing and simply shoot it down, then we've walked away from the issues that are still out there. I think that's the wrong way to go.
I think we make this effort, we start forward, we recognize that nothing is perfect. As I said, I remember debates over the original act were pretty heated at the time. I think it's kind of a bold step forward to say it's not perfect out there, but we're trying to help. Certainly this side, our government members are going to support it, and I hope it does pass.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.