Thank you, Mr. Chair.
If it's all right, I'll read it again just so that everyone's clear on what we're referencing. I am moving to amend Bill C-22 in clause 9 by adding after line 25 on page 3 the following:
(c.1) cannot be recovered, in whole or in part, under any Act of Parliament other than this Act; and
Just as a reminder about the premise of this, we heard a lot of testimony around concerns about clawbacks. I know that at the last committee we had a lot of conversations around provincial governments, but this is strictly within federal programs. Anything that would be provincial would have to be negotiated, so that's out of the context of this. That would have to be negotiated between the government and the provinces. This is strictly within federal programs, which is also very important.
I will also note that, in this, one of the concerns was around the garnishing of wages, but paragraph 9(d) in the bill itself says it can be garnished for that reason, so it really doesn't apply to this. That's already covered.
I will mention as well that, when we went to legal in order to draft this, this is what they came back with. A lot of people had questions around the word “recovered”, but that word is in another part of the bill. It's a term that is used. It's maybe not a word that each of us would use in normal conversation, but again, legal came back with this specific wording in order to address this. Even though we heard concerns around what it might be, that was the rationale.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.