Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to take a moment—forgive me, Minister Menzies, but I have to take a moment—to wish all of the women in the room a happy International Women's Day.
I must note how impressed I am to see, Minister Menzies, the balance of women versus men in high-ranking public service sitting with you at the table. I want to congratulate them. There are three to two here, and I'm so pleased to see our women doing so well in public service life.
In any event, Minister Menzies, I'm glad to see you here, because this is, as you said, a very important piece of legislation. It is a review that's mandatory, and there is a very important date coming for sunset. You mentioned as you provided your opening statement that the bill includes technical and administrative amendments that you classified as housekeeping, but you also acknowledge that some of them are very substantive measures that address current global and domestic trends.
Now, the financial crisis highlighted the importance of evaluating the overall size of financial institutions, their global linkages, and the impact these factors have on financial stability and the best interests of Canada's banking system.
As a partial response to lessons learned, today's legislation, as we know, proposes to reinstate an existing ministerial approval for select foreign acquisitions of financial institutions. I happen to have with me a quote from the Canadian Bankers Association with regard to that section. Here's what they said:
We fully support that decision. That power should be back with the finance minister to, in our view, give him a full suite of tools as part of the oversight of the financial system in Canada.
I would ask you, Minister Menzies, to tell us your thoughts with regard to the importance of this provision.