Industry Committee on Jan. 11th, 2024

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I thank you for that, Mr. Chair.

I also thank Mr. Perkins for submitting this because we weren't really having those discussions yet, so this has kind of created that.

I do want to point out that Mr. Lemire's motion has been on the books since September. This is the latest round of what's taken place for Canadian consumers. Just because it pops up when the House of Commons isn't sitting and is a specific target on the minister doesn't mean that we don't care about all of the other things that have taken place. There could have been action on this or several other things that have taken place, and we could have broken off meetings at any point in time. We're the authors of our own destiny here.

I would hope, and my intention is, to go to the steering committee to try to find these extra resources or the time to do something more substantial than just a one-hit wonder on Rogers in this moment, to do something that's going to be meaningful for Canadians and to not have it later on after Bill C-27 that we have it. I mean, this is the reality that we're faced with right now. It's a Hail Mary pass motion during a time period right now where we have very little time to even notify the witnesses to come and guarantee that they will be here. Otherwise, we'll have to go in a circle again and come back to look at just this one narrow piece of it.

I'm not hearing...and I'm hoping that some Liberal members might chime in and say that they're committed to actually working with the steering committee to find the resources so that this doesn't get lost again. However, that's the reality. We could have abandoned our Bill C-27 study at any point in time. Any motion could have happened at any point in time on this or other issues. Mr. Lemire's motion has been on the books since September, and we have not acted on it. We haven't acted on it for a lot of different reasons.

I hope that we could actually then do what you're saying, Mr. Chair: meet together and get an appropriate combination that's more.... You know, the fact is that Mr. Lemire deserves some credit for being ahead of this. He's not reacting to what's taking place in just a small subset of a larger problem in the industry. Mr. Lemire actually approached the committee in earnest with a motion. He put it on the table. We voted on it and supported it. It's been sitting patiently, as he has been in this committee.

I'm hoping that other Liberal members will commit to making sure that we're going to do more than just wait around for Bill C-27. That's not the intent at all. For me, this is invigorating in the sense that we're actually going to get to something that I think is very much something that the committee should be spending some time on. Bill C-27 is soaking everything up, but we actually have some of the biggest responsibilities.

I'll conclude with this. This is why some of our work has been shopped around to other committees as well. It's been done by certain parties that have tried multiple motions on the same subjects in different committees, trying to take work away from us so we're not even finishing the stuff that we have actually passed motions on and that we actually still having witnesses coming forth on.

I guess the thing we have to discuss, whether it's going to be publicly now, openly later on or outside of our other meeting—we can have the subcommittee meet in public too—is whether we are going to abandon all of the other work, money and investment that went into Sustainable Development Technology Canada, that went into the auto motions. Are we going to actually give all of those things up too? I don't know. I don't know how we solve that on the fly like this. I just hope that we have a commitment here to do what we probably should have done: been more proactive on Mr. Lemire's motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. Masse.

Ms. Ferreri, you have the floor.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Listen—this is like going around in circles. It's super frustrating.

I think Mr. Lemire's study is obviously relevant. There's something bigger here. The looming fact is that we were elected as members of Parliament to work. I'm not understanding the rationale within this group, if I'm to be honest with you. Canadians were promised that cellphone bills would not go up with this merger. That was the promise of the minister. It is front-page news. They are going up. They are going up in a cost of living crisis in one of the worst months of the year, January.

I tried to feel the vibe of the room here. Everybody here has said that, yes, this is a problem, but that, no, we're not going to vote in favour of this motion to bring forth the minister and the CEO of Rogers.

I put it forward as a friendly suggestion, but now, because I couldn't get a thumbs-up, I'm just going to put it forward as an official amendment that, within the motion that was put forward by my colleague Mr. Perkins—it's the same motion—I would like to remove (c), (d) and (e). We would still have Minister Champagne and Tony Staffieri, CEO and president of Rogers, appear before the committee.

These are questions that need to be answered. We have a big study of Bill C-27. We have the time. To say that we don't have the time to conveniently log on to our computers from our constituency offices and speak for Canadians who are suffering doesn't make any sense. We're talking about two meetings. This is two hours of our time. We were elected to do this. This is our job.

That's what I would put forward to the committee members. At least we'd be getting the minister in front of us. The minister has even said that he would use any tools necessary. He wants to deal with this. The Liberal minister has said he wants to deal with this.

What are we even contemplating here? It doesn't make any sense.

I would get rid of everything after “Rogers” in (b). It's just Tony, just to clarify. Again, the amendment would keep (a) as is, and under (b), it would be Tony Staffieri, CEO and president of Rogers, and that would be the end of it. Everything after that would be deleted. There would be none of Mirko, and so on. We would not be calling on those people. You can delete the rest of that. That is the amendment I am putting forward, that they would appear before January 26. If we have to put that to the clerk, let me know. I just think this makes the most sense.

We can agree on this. This is simple. This is what the minister has said. He will use any tools possible. Let's put Canadians first. Let's get this done.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Okay.

Thank you, MP Ferreri.

We've all heard the terms of MP Ferreri's amendment to the motion. Now we're debating this amendment.

I will recognize Mr. Turnbull.

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, just to clarify, don't we have a motion by Mr. Vis on the floor as well?

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

No, Mr. Van Bynen. I ruled his amendment out of order, unreceivable.

We have an amendment by Ms. Ferreri on the floor.

Mr. Turnbull, go ahead.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Thanks.

I wasn't anticipating an amendment, but I was listening intently to Ms. Ferreri's attempt to amend the motion.

From my perspective we've literally been saying that we want to do a more fulsome and robust study. What Ms. Ferreri has just suggested cuts that study down even further. It makes it more narrow rather than more robust, which is counter to where the committee conversation has been going.

I'm not really sure why we would be doing that or why that would move us closer to consensus, when it's really going to make the study more narrow. I think we heard from Mr. Lemire that his motion, which was adopted by the committee, has been sitting there. He's been waiting patiently. Mr. Masse said he thought that was a better place to start. I think I agree with that. It ensures that we do a more robust study.

I certainly would reassure members of this committee that, if the subcommittee can meet, I'm sure we could take Mr. Lemire's motion and work towards a study or wording for this motion on which we could achieve consensus. That would include some of the things that were in Mr. Perkins' original motion for which we've tried to suggest there's a path forward to do.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Chair, sorry to interrupt my colleague, but I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Sorry, Mr. Turnbull.

Thank you, Mr. Lemire. I was just getting the same message from the interpreters.

Mr. Turnbull, I think your bandwidth is low. It makes it hard for the interpreters to hear you properly. Also, the image is freezing a fair bit.

Maybe you could try turning the camera off and pursuing your comments. I don't know if that's going to help with our situation and get the interpretation back, because this takes up a lot of bandwidth, but it's been going on for some time now.

Would you mind trying again? We can see if the interpretation works.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Okay. I'm sorry about that. I've just disconnected my other two devices from the Internet. I apologize. It may improve things...no.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

It's not helping all that much. I'll keep you on the back burner, Mr. Turnbull.

I have MP Van Bynen and Mr. Vis next.

Perhaps you could connect directly to the source. In any event, we have four minutes left.

I'll go to Mr. Van Bynen.

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to come back to the urgency that we talked about with respect to Bill C-27 and reinforce the discussion we've had about how important this issue is.

I think if we all believe in the importance of making sure that the industry is held accountable and is responsive, we can take the time to do this right.

My father used to have a saying: “Act in haste and repent at leisure.” My concern is that we're in such a rush to get this done we're not going to have an accurate analysis of what the issue is.

Again, I have to go back to the fact that there are a lot of components at issue here, not the least of which is investment and technology, not the least of which is the dynamics of competition and not the least of which is the difference between price and cost that is determined by the volumes that people have and whether those volumes go up or down. You could have the same price, but if your utilization goes up, the cost goes up.

There are a lot of things that need to be examined very thoroughly, very clearly, in depth and wholesomely.

I'll go back to what Brian said earlier. If this is important, we should give it the fullness of our attention, but it needs to be prompt. At the same time, I've heard that we can walk and chew gum at the same time. We can do two things at the same time. My biggest fear is that we're looking at doing one and a half things at the same time.

I'm really disappointed that we're not giving it the thoroughness it needs. We're not giving it the level of investigation and the level of facts so that we can have a fact-based decision and go forward with making sure that we're doing what's right for our communities.

There is the authority for rollbacks on prices as well. However, at the same time, we haven't done anything to slow down the runaway technology that Bill C-27 has, and that's a genuine concern that I have.

Let's make sure that we're doing what's right for the country and not just trying to grab media headlines. It's important that we give full consideration to the issue at hand. If we're genuinely concerned about it, let's make sure that it's a thorough analysis and that we get all the facts.

With respect to the amendment that's being proposed, I'm not sure that if we say everything after (c) is deleted. It includes the paragraph that talks about the progress report, which I think is essential. That could form a part of what's being proposed by Mr. Lemire.

We need to give this due and thorough consideration. We need to make sure that what we're doing is in the best interests of the country, and not necessarily politically expedient.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. Van Bynen.

I see that we're getting to the end of this two-hour meeting.

Given that we haven't reached a decision, the meeting will be suspended.

I'm hopeful that the subcommittee, which will meet in the coming days, will be able to work out our differences and come back with a plan that's going to make good use of the resources of this committee on behalf of Canadians.

I want to thank you all for this first committee of 2024. It's good to see you all—

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Do we still call the vote?

[An hon. member]

Do we get to vote?

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

No. The meeting is suspended because we've reached the time allocated for the hour, unfortunately. It will be the first thing when we resume. A meeting that is suspended then continues, as you all know.

Thank you, all. I'm looking forward to seeing you all in person.

[The meeting was suspended at 5:30 p.m., Thursday, January 11]

[The meeting resumed at 11:07 a.m., Monday, January 29]

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Good afternoon, everyone. I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to the continuation of meeting number 106 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry and Technology, which was suspended on January 11.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the Standing Orders.

We'll begin today's meeting with a bit of committee business. Then we'll proceed to hearing our witnesses on Bill C-27.

Thanks to all of you for being with us today. As members know, we suspended our last meeting, which was meeting number 106. To move on to Bill C-27, we would need unanimous consent to withdraw Mr. Perkins' motion.

I will yield the floor to Mr. Perkins.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm prepared to withdraw my motion. If I could get unanimous consent, that would be appreciated.

(Motion withdrawn)

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

I want to thank you, Mr. Perkins. The motion has been withdrawn.

Secondly, you have all received report number six of the subcommittee on agenda and procedure. If there are no questions, comments or amendments, I would seek unanimous consent to adopt the steering committee report.

(Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Wonderful.

Pursuant to the order of reference of Monday, April 24, 2023, today the committee is continuing its consideration of Bill C‑27, An Act to enact the Consumer Privacy Protection Act, the Personal Information and Data Protection Tribunal Act and the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other Acts.

I would like to welcome today's witnesses.

We're joined here by Todd Bailey, vice president of intellectual property at Scale AI.

With us by video conference, we have Gillian Hadfield, chair and director of the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society.

We're meeting in person with Wyatt Tessari L'Allié, founder and executive director of AI Governance and Safety Canada.

With us by video conference, we also have Nicole Janssen, co‑founder and co‑chief executive officer of AltaML.

Lastly, we're joined by two representatives of the Canadian Red Cross. Catherine Gribbin, a senior legal advisor for international humanitarian law, is joining us in person. Jonathan Horowitz, a legal advisor for the International Committee of the Red Cross's regional delegation for the United States and Canada, is joining us by video conference.

I want to welcome everyone. Thank you for taking the time to discuss this significant bill.

Without further ado, I'll give the floor to Mr. Bailey for five minutes.

[Todd Bailey, Chief Intellectual Property Officer and General Counsel, Scale AI, As an Individual]

Mr. Chair and honourable members, I appreciate very much the opportunity to speak to you this morning.

My organization, the Scale AI supercluster, is the only truly national AI organization in Canada. We've supported over a hundred AI industry projects from coast to coast, providing us with unique insights into the business side of Canadian AI.

In 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt stood before his nation and said, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” I think FDR's words echo here today. In the natural world, fear is survival, but in the human world, we balance fear with reason. The past year has seen incredible advances in AI progress. Fear is understandable, but it can't govern our response.

Here are five things that I think our rational minds needs to keep close. The first is that AI is still just math that makes predictions based on data, even ChatGPT, even Stable Diffusion. When progress catches us by surprise, we must adapt.

For example, we've known forever that photos, audio and video can be altered and even faked. Hollywood CGI even now seems to bring dead actors back to life. The first time we saw deepfakes, yes, we were shocked, but now it's time to adapt. If Joe Biden gives you a robocall later tonight, Mr. Chair, I don't think you're going to be fooled. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

Second, we know that fear leads to poor decisions. History shows us regrettable legislative decisions motivated by fear of political belief, of race, of orientation. Fear is not a worthy legislator. For example, we know that AI doesn't create discrimination. Bias is a human failing. It shows up in our data. It shows up in our processes. Nevertheless, bias and ethical AI are now the subject of important discussion and research within the Canadian AI community, because these are also Canadians who care about their privacy, their human rights and their children, just as we do. As Canadians, we are much better off having our fellow Canadians working on these problems rather than hoping foreign companies will solve them in line with our values.

The third thing to know about Canadian business is that it needs Canadian AI. We lead in AI research, but Canadian businesses' adoption of AI has been slow. Scale AI is working to correct this because it's essential to narrowing Canada's famous productivity gap. We're supporting everything from predicting consumer demand to keeping trucks on the road and our roads in good shape to improve Canadian productivity. Avi Goldfarb of the Rotman School of Management sat here and said that, if Canadian businesses do not continue to adopt AI, the standard of living of all Canadians will be affected.

The fourth thing to stay rational about is that we can't regulate the unknown. Vague or overly broad rules won't protect Canadians, but they will force Canadian AI companies to go elsewhere to find predictability, leaving us in foreign hands. That's not better. I have some examples to share if anyone wants. However, we must stay true to our legislators' instincts. Clearly defined, known or foreseeable things create clear requirements with a mechanism to adapt when the unknown finally arrives.

The last thing that we must recognize is that this committee has had almost no guidance from AI businesses. They've made up just 5% of your witnesses. Shouldn't we give a voice to those who are affected?

The joining of AIDA with parts 1 and 2 hasn't helped, and splitting them apart for a proper study makes sense. The Canadian AI CEOs that you have heard from say that they are ready for regulation, but they were also unanimous that the legislation must be clear and internationally consistent.

JF Gagné sat here and said that, if the goal is to have a framework that actually works, then it's important to ensure that it's not overly general because that makes it difficult for Canadians to innovate or have confidence in their regulatory framework. Business confidence in regulation can be an advantage. In the fifties, despite intense fear around nuclear technology, clear Canadian regulation fostered the development of the ultra-safe CANDU reactor, a competitive advantage for Canada that sold around the world.

As I said, international alignment is essential, but the EU and U.S. positions are not yet clear. President Biden has essentially only ordered his departments to study and report back, and a key EU member state has now already signalled that it doesn't support all of the EU act.

How can we align at this moment? Some want us to hurry AIDA forward, alleging that there's an AI wild west, but that's the fear talking. Existing laws apply to AI just as everything else. There is no legal vacuum. We have time to make it clear and to make it consistent.

In closing, I encourage you to respect your fears but not to let them legislate. Canada needs Canadian AI. Canadian AI needs clear and consistent legislation, and that needs guidance from Canadian AI businesses.

Thank you very much for your time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. Bailey.

I'll now yield the floor to Ms. Hadfield for five minutes.

[Professor Gillian Hadfield, Chair, Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society, University of Toronto, As an Individual]

My name is Gillian Hadfield. I'm a professor of law and economics at the University of Toronto, where I hold the Schwarz Reisman chair in technology and society. I'm also a CIFAR AI chair at the Vector Institute and a Schmidt Sciences AI2050 senior fellow. I basically don't think about anything except AI these days.

I'm appearing here in a personal capacity. I really appreciate the opportunity to speak to you about this crucial piece of legislation.

In my view, Parliament should move to enact AIDA as soon as possible. However, there are some outstanding areas of concern that I would like to highlight, along with some recommendations.

First, I think AIDA should recognize and address the fundamental, systemic and potentially catastrophic risk posed by large models. I don't think this is just fear talking. AIDA is currently focused on individual harms. I think that means we are neglecting potential systemic issues like financial instability, election interference and national security threats posed by advanced AI systems. Recent regulatory actions in the U.S. and the U.K. highlight the need to address systemic risks in AI alongside individual harms.

Proposed amendments to the definition of “high-impact system” remain focused on individual harms and should be expanded to include coverage of AI likely to cause systemic harms regardless of domain.

To further address systemic harms, Canada should swiftly establish, either as a part of AIDA or in separate legislation, a mandatory registry for large AI models to provide basic insights into developers, associated risks and legal compliance to ensure effective regulation amid the rapid pace of AI development.

Second, AIDA needs to retain the flexibility and adaptability that I saw in its initial draft. This is because of a basic tension at the core of AI regulation: Legislation does not move quickly; advanced technologies do. Consider the very process of passing Bill C-27. It's been well over 500 days since Minister Champagne introduced this legislation in June 2022, yet the bill remains at some distance from becoming law. Meanwhile, AI has been racing forward. Since that time, we have all witnessed the emergence of ChatGPT, GPT-4 and additional large models. Companies have scrambled to integrate AI into their operations. AI continues to demonstrate its practical applications across diverse fields like law, health care and finance. As I mentioned, other countries are taking action.

The rate of change of advanced technologies demands responsiveness and adaptability in the regulation we impose on them. The original draft of AIDA was extremely flexible in this regard. It set out broad parameters for AI regulation, leaving specific details to be worked out in regulations and administrative decisions. Minister Champagne's letter of November 28 last year reduced this flexibility by moving key regulatory requirements into the legislation itself. As you consider this bill and these amendments at committee, I urge you to be mindful that, while this may provide greater clarity to businesses in the short term, it will impair AIDA's flexibility and, therefore, its long-term effectiveness as the foundation of Canada's AI regulation.

I think the most important point I want to make is to emphasize that additional supports must be implemented to operationalize the desired flexibility, longevity and balance of AIDA. Relying on regulations that will take at least two years to develop will leave stakeholders in a dynamic and rapidly advancing area with significant uncertainty, as you've heard. Canada can make itself a leader in AI regulation, however, by implementing two low-barrier regulatory schemes to provide AIDA with the flexibility it needs while increasing certainty for stakeholders.

One is to have safe harbours that would offer time-limited guidelines for acceptable AI use to shield organizations from legal repercussions. The other involves a proposal I've made regarding regulatory markets, which would involve licensing private regulators to ensure flexible and efficient regulation.

These solutions aim to balance innovation and safety, to promote effective technology regulation without stifling innovation and to ensure that citizens are protected from AI-related risks. I'll note that Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, wrote a piece in The Wall Street Journal just last Saturday advocating this regulatory market approach.

I'd like to thank the committee for your hard work on this important bill, and I look forward to your questions.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Ms. Hadfield.

I'll now give the floor to Mr. Tessari L'Allié for five minutes.

[Wyatt Tessari L'Allié, Founder and Executive Director, AI Governance and Safety Canada]

Committee members, thank you for giving me the honour of being here.

AI Governance and Safety Canada is a cross‑partisan not‑for‑profit organization and a community of people across Canada. We started with the following question. What can we do in Canada, and from Canada, to ensure positive artificial intelligence outcomes?

In November, we submitted a brief with detailed recommendations concerning the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act. We're currently preparing a second brief in response to the amendments proposed by the minister.

The witnesses at previous meetings already discussed the risks posed by the current systems. I'll focus today on the upcoming economic and safety challenges posed by artificial intelligence; on the time constraints involved in preparing for these challenges; and on what all this means for the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act.

Let me start by stating the obvious. With human intelligence staying roughly the same and AI getting better by the day, it is only a matter of time before AI outperforms us in all domains. This includes ones like reasoning, caring for people and navigating real-world complexity, where we currently hold a clear advantage. Building this level of AI is the explicit goal of frontier labs like OpenAI, Google DeepMind and, more recently, Meta.

The first implication of smarter-than-human AI is for public safety, due to the weaponization and control problems.

The weaponization problem is straightforward. If a human being can design or use weapons of mass destruction, then a smarter-than-human AI system can too. This means that, in the hands of the wrong people, smarter-than-human AI systems could be used for unprecedented harm.

The control problem comes from the fact that a system that is smarter than us is, by definition, one that can out-compete us. This means that if an advanced AI system, through accident or poor design, starts to interpret human beings as a threat and takes actions against us, we will not be able to stop it.

Moreover, there is a growing body of evidence backed by research at the world's top AI labs suggesting that, without proper safety precautions, AI systems above a certain threshold of intelligence may behave adversarially by default. This is why hundreds of leading AI experts signed a statement last year saying, “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority”.

The second major implication is for labour. As AI approaches the point where it can do everything we can, only better—including designing robots that can outperform us physically—our labour will be increasingly less useful. The economic pressures are such that a company that doesn't eventually replace its CEO, board and employees with smarter-than-human AI systems and robotics will likely be a company that loses out to others that do. If we don't manage these developments wisely, increasing numbers of people will get left behind.

I want to be clear, however, that AI is also a very positive force, and we can't let fear take us over. The world we create with advanced AI could be a far more peaceful, prosperous and equitable world than the one we currently have. It's just that, as discussed so far, AI and, in particular, smarter-than-human AI represents a tsunami of change, and there's a lot we need to get right.

How much time do we have? The reality is that we're already late in the game. Even the rudimentary AI that we have today is causing issues with everything from biased employment decisions to enabling cybercrime and spreading misinformation.

However, the greatest risks come from AI that is reliably smarter than us, and that AI could be coming soon. Many leading experts expect human levels of AI in as little as two to five years, and the engineers at the frontier labs whom we've talked to are saying there's even a 5% to 10% chance of it being built in 2024. While accurate predictions about the future are impossible, the trends are clear enough that a responsible government needs to be ready.

What we can do? In our white paper “Governing AI: A Plan for Canada”, we outline five categories of action needed from government, including establishing a central AI agency, investing in AI governance and safety research, championing global talks and launching a national conversation on AI. Legislative action is the fifth, and essential, pillar.

The main reasons Canada needs an AI and data act are, first, to limit current and future harms by banning or regulating high-risk use cases and capabilities; second, to create a culture of ethics, safety and accountability in the public and private sectors that can scale up as AI technology advances; and third, to provide government with the capacity, agility and oversight to adequately protect Canadians and respond to developments in the field as they arise.

The minister's amendments are a good step in the right direction, and I'd be happy to provide feedback on them.

To conclude, while the challenges we face with AI are daunting and the timelines to address them are very tight, constructive action to govern the risks and harness the opportunities is possible, and bills like Bill C-27 are an essential piece of the puzzle.

As the wheels of history turn around us, one thing is clear: Success on this global issue will require every country to step up to the challenge, and Canada's on us.

Thank you.

I look forward to answering your questions.