I can give credit to my ADM, Susan Cartwright, who led a huge team of talented public servants who worked hard to put this proposal together. I also give credit to Joe Wild, from the legal side, who worked with a dedicated team of folks from the justice department to help draft it.
I suppose like any legislation, we may say “six” where other people prefer “half a dozen”, and we may say “tomato” where people would rather say “tomahto”. We are open to doing things that can strengthen the bill or clarify it or provide a greater degree of comfort. I think I spoke to Mr. Owen about that. We're certainly open. We're open not just because we're a minority government; we're open because if we can make the bill better, or clarify it, that's a good thing.
There's no doubt it's a comprehensive bill, I acknowledge that, but in terms of its thickness, a lot of it is designating, for example, all the deputy heads, listing who they all are for the agencies within government. One of the things we've done is to separate the chair and CEO positions for crown corporations--the Dairy Commission, the National Capital Commission, and other things. So when you look at that, the bill is a little bit smaller than it might at first seem.
In addition, a lot of the proposals in this are ones that have been discussed. Mr. Owen spoke at great length at the beginning of his comments about the work that the previous government had done. A lot of it builds on that work. There have been substantive discussions around this place. We just talked about former Bill C-11. We had a huge number of hearings in the previous Parliament on that issue. We also have the benefit of the Auditor General's report.
I am satisfied that this is a pretty good bill, but like everything else, we're all human beings, and no one is perfect. I've often found that in the legislative process we may come forward with a proposal wanting to accomplish acts, and people may have concerns that this may not be the best way to accomplish it, or would have greater comfort if it were done a different way. That's why, if members of the committee have advice, or you hear other advice on these things, we're certainly open.