Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My thanks to both commissioners for joining us today.
We have discussed the hole in the federal legislation in terms of lobbying in connection with the awarding of public contracts, lobbying done by companies who want to develop a contractual relationship with the government.
At the moment, there is no framework for that. We are studying the Lobbying Act today. It does not mean that the act will automatically be amended, because it's a process of consultation.
In Quebec, we have often identified major flaws in the legislation on lobbying, or in the observance of the legislation when major infrastructure projects are involved. I don't want to rehash our recent history, but we did have the Charbonneau commission and the scandals in the construction industry when it came to building roads and interchanges, and so forth.
Today, there's a gaping hole in the federal legislation, just as projects with record-breaking costs are starting up: pipelines, rail networks, high-speed trains, military procurement, military bases, fighter aircraft and so on.
It's one heck of a hole—pardon my language. Commissioner Routhier, is it not urgent to plug it before we start all that procurement and all those big infrastructure projects?