Their record is that the consultation came out to Vancouver the day before this bill was tabled, in February of this year. Their experience was very clearly to not have been consulted, but to have been invited to an information session very recently.
I noted that you said you agreed with many of the comments you heard. Yet here we have a comment from the minister in British Columbia, as follows:
We agree that some regulation...is justified. However, the overly broad reach of this bill is such that we feel it should be either withdrawn or substantially amended by reducing the scope to address our concerns. It is not clear that regulation of this wide range of toxins and organisms will have public health protection benefits. ...our strong preference is that a new bill be considered which is collaboratively developed through consultations with the provinces and territories.
Clearly there's not an experience of consultation to date.
The minister goes on: “It's the province's view that the current bill carries a grave risk of, paradoxically, harming the public health management of pathogens.” Then she goes on to list some very specific concerns.