Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I want to say thank you to the committee for having adjourned a little bit early in our last meeting to create some time to just get the wording right on this.
Obviously there is another complementary amendment to this one. The idea of them both is that the budget implementation act would establish some pretty important authorities for the minister in respect of the express entry system. We felt strongly, and I hope others around the table will as well, that there should be some checks and balances on that.
The idea there is to ensure that these new categories for express entry would not be established without having a robust and obligatory public consultation process with some direction as to how that process ought to unfold. As I said, the discretionary powers without this are considerable.
We've often heard the department and the minister talk about occupational categories, but in fact that's not in the legislation. The legislation just talks about groupings or categories of people. I think this public consultation process is an important component in order to make sure that a government or a minister can't make these choices willy-nilly, if you'll permit the phrase, but that they have to do that in consultation with others and get advice from people who have their feet on the ground and well understand the labour market needs of Canada as well as the situation of the folks who may well come under the express entry system and the special categories established by the minister.
The new amendment that I am presenting here is the first part of a two-part effort to establish that accountability through public consultation.