I'd like to say first that I'm not a lawyer and certainly not a legal expert on the Investment Canada Act.
Certainly, as I was reading Bill C-34, I was surprised with this focus on the unit—in French, unité exploitée—which to me refers much more to the legal entity, the enterprise. Then I was thinking, “Okay, is it the enterprise itself that potentially poses the risk in terms of national security?” No. In fact, the bill talks about important assets or important technical information that is not public. If these are the issues and a foreign company decides to buy these assets or this technical information, bypassing the company itself, does it have an obligation to notify? In terms of my reading, it's not clear, which is why I raise the question.
Then, in terms of a solution, instead of talking about the entity, the unité exploitée, why not talk directly about assets and technical information? Why not make that the focus in terms of national security so that any foreigner who buys these assets—whether through a company, an enterprise or whatever or on its own—should notify the government? Then it's up to the government to decide whether there is a national security implication or not. It would be the same for these technical....
Why have this intermediate step focusing on the entity itself? You know, you could strip it and then say, “Oh, well, there's nothing there,” so the transaction goes on and the national security risk remains.