Right. Thank you for that.
I'll go back to two things. My colleague Niki Ashton raised an issue in Thompson, Manitoba, the other day of a company that purchased a smelter plant with the purpose of shutting it down. I question what economic benefit goes to Canada on that issue.
I'm just wondering; obviously, if you review a company and they have good practices and they meet all the criteria and they come in and do something like U.S. Steel does, for instance, then besides taking them to court, what other things can we do in that regard if indeed they plan to shut something down in order to withdraw some of the competition they have?
Two, 45 days doesn't seem to me to be a long time to complete a review. What is the average length of review? You said there were 16 of them. What was the average time it took?
I would go back to this question. If a company operates in certain countries of the world with very poor labour records, very poor environmental standards, very poor work standards and safety records and the whole bit, and that company comes in and wishes to invest in Canada, my fear, and my line of questioning, is that I don't think they're going to change their habits in any way. They're going to sort of downgrade the labour wages and benefits and everything else that we have here. We saw that with Vale Inco in Sudbury and everything else.
What thorough review do you good folks do to ensure that the investor or investors have clean hands and are reputable, that they have high levels of human rights and environmental and labour standards, before we allow that investment to take place--bearing in mind the net benefit test and the six factors? I don't see human rights here as part of your six factors. I don't see environmental standards as part of your standards.
This is my concern. I know that an awful lot of unions and workers are very concerned that when takeovers happen, their wages, their situations, start diminishing. I just question what benefit that is to Canada when people of that nature have to suffer those types of consequences.
I thank you.