Referring to Mr. Warkentin's friendly amendment, the only area I have difficulty with, and it was discussed earlier with the minister today, is with the reference to crown corporations. These are at arm's length, and they're generally out of the control of government, responsible to their own administration board of directors. I have no problem with referring to the federal public service, government agencies, etc., but I don't think we can make any reference or include crown corporations in that, simply because the government does not have enough effective control of those organizations. They're too far at arm's length to include them in this amendment. They should be omitted.
On June 20th, 2006. See this statement in context.