Thanks for the question, Mr. Chair, and for the opportunity to appear before you today.
Were the government to go in a different direction, to regulate this directly rather than the current arm's-length relationship we have now, I think the first step from our perspective is there's definitely a bit of policy tension that has to be explored about whether and how to address the tension between the department's primary function, which is assessing and making decisions on clients' applications, and that of regulating and setting the conditions for consultants whose function would be to assist applicants to put that best case forward.
Once that is set out, I think we're in a world to assess the steps to get to that outcome. Definitely from our perspective that's consultations with provinces and territories, but there's also a lot of work to design what would be core elements of the program.
Mr. MacDonald.