I know you can't divulge the past decisions, but my understanding of the cases I mentioned, going by the public information available from the minister at the time, is that for some reason, in the case of Tanco, for example, it was determined at the first level that there wasn't a national security interest. We never went any deeper or into any deeper thought, when obviously we knew that our only lithium mine was being bought by essentially a Chinese state-owned enterprise.
What I'm struggling with is that I think the process doesn't work. When that happens at the first level—according to Minister Bains and according to all the media I've read on it, that's as far as the analysis went in that case—it doesn't work if that level alone says, “Okay, we don't think there is, so go ahead.” Then, of course, it turns out that the company and the plan and everything they're doing is—to me—injurious to our net benefit and national security, because 100% of what's coming out of that mine is going straight to China and not being managed at all here.
The motivations of the company buying, the intent of the company buying, all those things clearly weren't exposed in that first level, or one might have thought that it should automatically go to the second or third level. I actually haven't seen this, because this level of stuff was long before I ever sat as a staffer in a cabinet meeting. The world didn't have much in the way of free trade of anything back then.
My concern is that the mistakes are...and maybe this is armchair quarterbacking post this thing, but to me, this is suspenders and a belt. I think you asked the other day, on the other bill, if we wanted suspenders and a belt. I think sometimes I do want suspenders and a belt in a law. I wouldn't wear it personally in a fashion sense, but in terms of legislation, I don't think there's anything wrong with having suspenders and a belt so that the minister has clear powers to do what he or she needs to do.
I don't know. Am I missing something? You probably can't speak to the Tanco case.