First of all, it is viewed as an important security and safety issue. It's a gap in the country, and we recommend that Parliament address that.
On the consultations, there's been dialogue and there were information sessions before the bill was introduced. But I would agree with the witnesses about the kind of in-depth consultations on the bill itself. At the Public Health Agency of Canada, we have discussed the issue. We went out before the bill was introduced with a paper on what a framework would look like, but it was a quick information session.
On the role of the department in this, we've provided good policy advice to the government of the day on the legislation to bring forward. The tradition is that the legislation is seen when first introduced by the government in Parliament. So it's not the usual case that you consult on the legislation itself before it's introduced in Parliament. But we do need to have the stakeholder input, and this is what we heard from the witnesses. As soon as the bill was tabled we were out there across the country to talk about what it meant. We talked about the difference in risk levels between level 3, level 4, and level 2, with our specific interest being the safety and security on the level 3 side, and using the level 2 in a mostly voluntary regime to be able to get good biosafety messages out there.
Once the bill was a public document, we knew right away that we had to get out there, and we were free to talk to researchers across the country on that. We've looked at the letter from B.C. and we want to continue that. That's where true consultation can start on the regulatory side of things.
As far as what's there, concerns were put forward about whether we were going to get the regulations right. You have a clear view from a province of what they're going to be saying to us in the regulation, and I think that's the start of a very good dialogue.