Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I am not surprised that the wording of the amendment put forward as Green Party-16 has been repeated by other opposition parties, because I took the language for the amendment directly from testimony to the committee, from Publish What You Pay and the Natural Resource Governance Institute. They are recommending, as you know, that we provide greater specificity and disaggregated project-level reporting in this act.
There is no question that I second the comments made by my colleagues. It is truly encouraging to see this legislation within.... We'd rather that it were not in an omnibus bill so it could get the kind of attention it deserves. However, this particular section of division 28, the extractive sector transparency measures act, is really welcome and would be much improved by accepting amendment Green Party-16, which requires the minister to specify in writing the way in which payments are to be broken down or organized, with the pay in each case, the jurisdiction, the amount of the payments, the total amount per category of payment and, if those payments can be attributed to a specific project, the total amount per category of payment.
I look forward to hearing from my colleagues. Perhaps, since this is an amendment supported by the expert witnesses who were before the committee, who also supported the intent of the legislation, this can be seen as an amendment that strengthens the overall effort of the bill.
Thank you.