Thank you very much.
Mr. Chair, for the specific difference between five per cent and two per cent, unfortunately I'm not a financial expert by any means and I'm not a mutual fund person who understands investments either, so I don't know that I can speak about the intent of moving 5% to 2% or the material difference with enforcing that. The RCMP is responsible for enforcement, and the Public Prosecution Service of Canada does the actual investigating and prosecuting.
I will take this opportunity just to make another couple of comments on this amendment and the potential effects it could have.
One thing I would note is that Canada, along with many other countries, has interpreted article 1 of the Convention on Cluster Munitions to be a prohibition on investments. By adopting language within the PCMA that would explicitly allow for investments, the concern would be that we would leave ourselves open to criticism that Canada is no longer compliant with the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
The other point I want to flag is on proposed paragraph 6.1(c) of the text, where we talk about “investments in certain projects”. “Certain projects” isn't defined, so we think that the potential impact of that language that's not well-defined is it would result in a lack of clarity for individuals and companies as to what would constitute an acceptable project under the law.
I don't know if our colleagues from DND have any concerns about questions on investments and how that might impact their research and development with companies, but I would leave that to them to comment on.
Thank you.