Thank you, Chair, and thanks to all of you for appearing today.
I want to pick up on the second-last question that my colleague raised with respect to constitutionality. Thank you very much for the briefing note you sent, Mr. Talibart, but I do worry that constitutionality and the federal makeup of our country could stand in the way of meaningful legislation actually having teeth and having an effect.
In your note, you say that “Canadian constitutional lawyers will struggle to craft a federal Canadian version” of the Modern Slavery Act, specifically section 54, which is perhaps the most relevant section because it focuses on supply chains. Then you expand on that and say that “in most cases provincial laws (securities and company laws as an example) are far more relevant to the modification of Canadian business behavior than Federal laws are”.
I know that you've touched on this already and you've cited examples of how a federal law could work, but if the government were to move forward and pass legislation that contains the spirit and principles of the Modern Slavery Act, could we end up in a situation where the result is that it doesn't have a real effect, and that the provinces actually have the power to legislate changes that would really have an impact on supply chains and the monitoring of supply chains?
I worry about legislation being crafted that doesn't actually have teeth and stands as a symbolic example. Does that actually have an effect, a positive effect?