On the evolution of the threshold, the Investment Canada Act, in its current incarnation, has been around since 1985.
Jonathan is more of an historian on this than I am. I can go as far back as 2008, when the scheduled increase was first implemented. In 2008, the threshold was $295 million. The Competition Policy Review Panel is an expert panel charged with reviewing all of Canada's competition laws and frameworks with a view to making recommendations to make Canada more globally competitive. At that time, the Competition Policy Review Panel did work and recommended that the threshold in the Investment Canada Act be increased from around $295 million to $1 billion.
Its recommendation was that it happen immediately. That was based on its consultations across the country and on economic studies, etc., that assessed that Canada might have been putting itself at a disadvantage in competing for foreign direct investment because we had a net benefit review, and because the threshold was relatively low compared to the value of our businesses at the time.
The recommendation was made then, and legislation was passed in 2010 to introduce this scheduled increase to $1 billion. The policy then was to, again, remove a regulatory barrier for smaller transactions and focus net benefit reviews on those transactions that would be the most significant to Canada's modern economy. That was put in for those reasons. The initiative today is just to accelerate that final step in the increase to $1 billion as part of broader initiatives, some of which are in this budget implementation bill, to increase foreign investment and attract more foreign investment to Canada.