Right.
We've actually had a lot of our people—we have members all over the country—who have been quite disappointed to this point with the consultation process, particularly with the minister. Your initial consultations were meeting with stakeholders, and these were called open consultations, but we were often receiving press releases to show up at them just 24 hours before they were held.
This committee has done a better process of consultation, in the sense that we have a variety of opinions here and you are actually going across the country. We applaud you on that. However, to the same point, they are not very well advertised. Often there are people who have frustrations because they're not necessarily getting a chance to speak. Also, we think that a consultation process isn't just about releasing a 6,000-page document and saying, “Okay, here you go. Analyze it as you wish.” In other countries, for example in Australia, they have a productivity commissioner who has actually done an analysis.
When I talk about analysis, I mean independent analysis, not analysis that's going to try to promote the agreement. It's to give Canadians the pros, the cons, and to let them have the information to decide. Also, for us, it's very important that the government has made commitments to first nations people. They're often on the front lines of resources. They could also be in situations where ISDS cases would affect them. For example, Malaysia has a company called Petronas on Lelu Island. A comprehensive consultation is also breaking it down, making sure that you do not have just the economic interests considered, but also how it affects human rights, how it affects broader society, and then having the kind of consultation that people can go with.
We're stuck in a situation where we negotiated an agreement during the last federal election without even all of the parliamentarians around the table. I think there is a great opportunity to address that.