I think there is a problem within Canada of a lot of influence from Chinese benefits going to people in positions of trust. When the Australian Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Act came into effect in 2019, several former Australian politicians resigned from lucrative boards, including the former minister of international trade, Andrew Robb, who resigned from an $880,000-a-year private consultancy with a Chinese billionaire who had achieved a 99-year lease on Port Darwin.
I do think this kind of legislation has a dampening effect on people who might feel that they need some funding for whatever purpose and that they can manage the conflict-of-interest aspect that may exist in it. I do think raising awareness of this and providing some mechanisms that ensure accountability is significant. That might encourage more champions within the government to take this matter more seriously and start pressing in cabinet for the necessary legislation to try to bring our Canadian practices and laws up to the standards of other nations.
That would include laws with regard to the transfer of classified technologies and dual-use military technologies to agents of a foreign state. We have a lot of trouble prosecuting these matters, because our laws are not as strong as those of the U.K. and the U.S. It's another area. There are just so many areas of concern about the challenge of China that we need to be able to address.