Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to our guests for their presentations. It was extremely enlightening for me. I value very much the experience you have on the ground.
Just for the record, Chair, one of the things I'd like to state at the beginning is--and I am subbing on this committee--the origins of this bill came from a report to this committee, and then there was the response to that report. I didn't know a bill was forthcoming so quickly. We're seeing some of the problems with the bill in terms of some of the unintended consequences we're hearing today. I want to state for the record that I think this was a rushed process.
I've heard it stated before that we all agreed to this. I think we all agreed to the fact that a report was done; I don't think we all agreed that this bill needed to be done so quickly. I would submit that if we wanted to do this well, the bill should have been done more thoroughly and there should have been some travel involved to talk to people. Were any comparisons done with other jurisdictions, be they provinces or other countries? I know that's the purpose of what we're doing now, but in terms of the origins of this bill, I think it would have been better if we had done our homework at the front end and not in the midst of the bill.
That said, the presentations were terrific and helpful.
I'll start with you, Mr. Hepburn. You said you had some concerns around delegation of authority and who gets to decide what is valid and what isn't. Can you give me a specific example of your concerns in terms of who has the jurisdiction over this and how that might be a problem in terms of the people you represent?