First, I would like to thank Mr. Bigras for his expression “pre-industrial“. I feel that the term is very appropriate, in English at least, to describe the consequences of this bill.
Secondly, I wish to make very clear my point of view, which is that merely setting targets without providing detailed plans on how to achieve them is a highly partisan, totally useless publicity exercise, and notwithstanding your protestations of non-partisanship, Mr. Hyer, I'm afraid that's all I see in this bill--merely setting targets without providing any detailed plans about how to get there. Anybody can set targets for the sake of putting a plaque on their wall that says “I signed this agreement setting targets”. It gets us nowhere, in my opinion.
Having said that, as you as a parliamentarian know, Mr. Hyer, under Standing Order 79, a private member's bill like Bill C-311 cannot require the appropriation of any part of the public revenue. So I want to ask you, can this bill be implemented without appropriating any public revenue?