Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for being with us today.
Before I ask my questions, I want to tell the government members that we are very disappointed to see that they have decided to ram this bill through, even though it is extremely important to Canadians. I think it is important to mention that we would have needed more time to study it. In particular, the minister should have appeared to give us some explanations.
He appeared before the Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade. I therefore do not see why he could not have taken the time to explain to members of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development of the House the changes being made to the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act. Since this Parliament is subjected to the whims of the government, we do not really know if these people are going to table a time allocation motion for this bill at third reading.
In my opinion, it is important to mention that this process is completely anti-democratic in that it does not give members the opportunity to really study the bill, which is extremely important.
Thank you very much for having listened to my preamble. I will now move on to my questions.
Mr. Kessel, the facilitation payments exception will come into force later than the rest of the bill, at a date to be set by cabinet. Are you aware of any consultations on how and when these facilitation payments will come into force?