Thank you for that very pragmatic question. I was hoping to have an opportunity to address that head on.
From the Competition Bureau's perspective, as I said in my opening comments, we're really pleased with the attention that's been paid to competition in this private member's bill, and other private member's and government bills to amend the law. I agree with Professor Larouche. It was probably too complex out of the gates in 1986, when it was, some say, drafted by the business community.
In terms of this bill, from the Competition Bureau perspective, I would say that we don't need to address clauses 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11. Clause 4, which deals with the penalty provision for federal financial institutions, is great in terms of the 14 years, but it should be a fine at the discretion of the court—not a maximum fine, the $25 million that it has now.
On clause 12, the bureau believes—and we put this in our recommendations to ISED—that a three-year limitation period for notifiable transactions is a good step forward. Right now, it's only one year. With our colleagues in the United States, there's no limitation period on reviewing mergers.
Finally, with respect to the costs award, that has been addressed in Bill C-59, but I would just point out that in our submission to ISED, we talked about full immunization. Bill C-59 is a pretty reasonable balance so, one way or the other, we're pretty happy with how that comes out. Really, quite strongly, we don't believe that we need those other clauses. They've been addressed in Bill C-19, Bill C-56, and hopefully soon in Bill C-59, but this has been a valuable contribution to the debate and the marketplace of ideas.