Thank you to all the witnesses here today.
I'm very concerned about this broken bill. As legislators, we around this table understand what's at stake here, but it's very disconcerting. For the second time since we started doing this bill, we received massive packages of information from the minister that completely changed the bill in front of us. I'm saying, “Minister, why did you screw up so badly, and where the heck was your department for years? Where were you?”
In the last meeting, I asked a number of experts whether Industry Canada or the Government of Canada even has the capacity. This was one of the first things I raised in Parliament when I got elected. I was on the HUMA committee reviewing data systems for the Department of Human Resources, because they were still using a binary code method from the 1970s. I think that's still in effect today. The Government of Canada has proven that, generally, they get a lot of things wrong and they're not up to date in the 21st century. I am so apprehensive about giving this department any more power over something most experts are still contemplating how to get right.
That said, I think that, despite the minister's incompetence in this, his heart may be partly in the right place. He's trying to bring forward amendments and do something to fix his own mess. However, it is very scary that he's so incompetent that we're just getting thrown this information.
I'm sorry for that rant, but part of me is thinking now—