It's a backstop, but that's the whole point. The problem is that we don't have enough supports in our systems, and we don't control what the Senate's going to do. Maybe the Liberals are going to take this out of Bill C-59 in the Senate. We could have that happen. We don't know what they're going to pass, but what we can do is pass this here and tell the Senate that we're supporting this change.
What we're telling the Senate right now, if we don't pass this, is that we don't really care about this. That's what we're telling the Senate. They're dealing with the legislation, so if we take this out, the message to the Senate is that they can take it out as well, because we're not being consistent in protecting what we want. That's the reason I think it's important.
I don't know what their objective is on this, but clearly, there is an objective here in the sense that, if we say to the Senate right now that we don't care about this and that we're going to pass a bill without it, we've just told them that they can tinker with that because the House of Commons has now defeated it, and that bill will be inconsistent with what we're dealing with right here. That will be the message that we send them.
On this particular issue, it's pretty germane to what's taken place with Canadian competition and the offence that's taken place to the Competition Bureau. That's what we're dealing with now, and that's why I think the redundancy that we've proposed here today is actually important.
I'm a little upset with it because we're telling the Senate right now, again, that we're reversing course, that we're changing sails, and a House of Commons committee with the government voting against this is telling the Senate that they don't care about this issue, that they don't support consistency and that they have mixed messages. On top of that, they could actually take those messages and turn that around to amendments that will then come back to the House of Commons, further delaying the passage of Bill C-59, because if the bill actually gets amendments in the Senate, then we have to deal with it again in our chamber.
This is why I'm a bit concerned about this. I think it's a bigger issue than it is because I don't understand why the Liberals just wouldn't say, “Do you know what? It's redundancy, but that's okay. We have a backstop here. Let's go. We'll send the message to the Senate that we're clear, that we're good on these things and that we want it passed.” Instead what they're doing is saying that they have second thoughts about protecting the Competition Bureau, second thoughts about the competition commissioner getting sued by large conglomerates, including Rogers, and second thoughts about other things to protect Canadian consumers.
That's the message being told here, and I'm totally concerned with their position on this because I don't know if they have another agenda in the Senate. I don't know if we now have to have delays to get the bill passed because it has to come back again, but that's what we're telling them.
They'll look at this. They'll look at the testimony here, and they'll say, “Well, do you know what the government's saying? It's saying that it doesn't want to do it anymore.”
Again, I think we should just pass it because it's consistent, and I think consistency's important to get it done.
Thank you.
