Thank you, Sandy.
Our second point is that the investment review division—IRD—will need to have adequate resources to administer the new notification regime. The government must be able to process notifications quickly to determine their completeness, because national security review timelines run from a filing's certification date and closing cannot occur until this timeline has expired.
IRD is currently unable to make certification decisions promptly. They are often issued at least a month or more after notification. With an increase in the number of filings, the timing of certification will be become even more problematic and could significantly delay the closing of transactions, negatively affecting the credibility of the government within Canadian and international business communities.
We recommend that the government be required to assess a filing's completeness within three business days and to ensure IRD has adequate resources to achieve this time limit.
The third point is the introduction of interim measures. The bill allows the minister to prohibit all forms of transaction planning activity, including those that are legitimate to undertake on a post-signing, preclosing basis. We believe the minister should have such an extraordinary unsupervised power only for a limited time, such as 30 days. To extend the interim prohibition, the minister should be required to apply for a court order, with notice to the affected parties.
The bill also gives the minister the power to accept mitigation measures as conditions of approval. In the interests of transparency, we believe the minister should periodically publish aggregate and anonymized guidance indicating the types of mitigation accepted.
In closing, the bill gives the government greater ability to assert national security privilege during the judicial review of a national security order. This raises serious concerns regarding the ability of investors to effectively exercise the right to seek judicial review.
We have proposed some options to address this imbalance and achieve a better, fairer decision-making process.
Thank you again for the opportunity to present today. We look forward to answering any questions you may have.