I will speak to the three pieces, as I understand them, in turn.
On 21 days versus 45 days, to be candid with the committee, 21 days is unrealistic. The time frame to adequately evaluate a notification under the act, analyze whether it should be reviewed for net benefit for public interest, consult with provincial and territorial stakeholders and then perform the necessary work to obtain an order in council—and for anyone who has ever done that, it's not the easiest or quickest process—the 21-day timeline is highly unlikely. I think I could say with relative certainty that it's never going to align with the Treasury Board Secretariat's filing and meeting schedule. The 45 days for a prescribed period is more appropriate, as it would match the relevant review periods in the act.
On the second piece, as it relates to notice to the investor, the existing section 15 includes subparagraph 15(b)(ii), which requires the director to provide a notice to the non-Canadian foreign investor in order to make it reviewable. This is required not merely out of procedural fairness, but because it sets in motion a process, in section 17, where the investor is then required to file an application. Applications require more information and documentation than just a notification. Therefore, the reference in section 17 would need to include the new subsection 15(2) in order to trigger that whole process.
Finally, as it relates to narrowing the scope of SOE investments to those outside of trade agreements.... As you would have heard from me last week—I was going to say earlier in the week, but earlier in the week was a different bill; it's all a blur—obviously, there's some consideration of the degree to which we have trade agreement obligations and WTO obligations. Our trade agreements are specific to the fact that we're trying very hard to ensure we are creating a level playing field for investments and encouraging investments between our countries. That's the case for a number of countries that feature state-owned enterprises. I know that when we think about SOEs, we always think about particular countries. Actually, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board is viewed in many countries as a state-owned enterprise, by the definition of SOE, as are similar pension funds in a number of other countries.
Limiting the scope to those with whom we do not have a trade agreement still causes trade risk but obviously does not violate the trade agreements we've actually set out and potentially disadvantage Canadian outward investment, which would suddenly now be potentially subject to a reciprocal, retaliatory net benefit, which would potentially create both uncertainty and friction in the system.