Every government has organizations with whom they would like to consult and some with whom they don't. At this point, the committee is gone, the petitioning process is gone. The key obligation the minister has is in subclause 4(2), which says, “the competent minister may consult with international agencies and Canadian non-governmental organizations”. How she does that is largely her business, but she has to be accountable to Parliament, and she has to demonstrate in some manner that she fulfilled the obligations of subclause 4(2). How she does that, I guess, will be ultimately determined by her, but if in fact members of the opposition say, “Well, did you consult with NGO X?”, and she says no, then they may well want to know why she didn't consult with NGO X, or maybe she has a very good reason for not consulting with NGO X. Under this scheme, she has no obligation to consult with NGO X, but she could be exposed to answering a question as to why she didn't consult with NGO X.
On October 24th, 2006. See this statement in context.