That's a fair question.
I don't think it is interfering. First of all, under the current statute, under IRPA, I think the minister can and in fact has a responsibility to designate a regulator of consultants and can de-designate. I'm using the current statutory authority that Parliament has given to the minister to call for proposals on a designated regulator.
This is in response to concerns raised specifically by this committee. Quite frankly, some might ask--I suspect Ms. Chow might--why it is taking us so long. We did a committee report on this in whenever it was, in 2008, and we finally got around to opening up the process because of concerns raised about the current regulatory body.
So we didn't want to wait. We wanted to take action. What we propose in this bill would only enhance the current powers that exist in the statute for ministerial oversight of the activities of the regulatory body. It clarifies the capacity of the minister to de-designate the regulatory body going forward.
We are also now proposing an amendment to expand the requirement of the regulatory body to provide information on its governance to the minister, to ensure that we don't have the same kinds of accountability problems that have existed in the past four years.