Absolutely. As I said, I come to this from the enforcement perspective. I come to this as someone who is concerned, as I believe we all are, with the integrity of our capital markets, and there's no more important initiative now being discussed than a national securities enforcement program.
As I say, I'm not here to talk about who should register and regulate brokers and how they do their business. Why we need a national enforcement agency is because our market is increasingly international in scope and we are not at the table with the national regulators of other G countries, and we need to be there. We also need to avoid the enormous duplication that I see in the enforcement programs of the provinces and territories. I can tell you that cases I deal with every day in my practice may involve securities commissions of three different provinces, and those securities commissions are duplicating their efforts, at great cost to all of us. I fully support the initiative that we have on a national enforcement agency to do exactly that, because I think that in an unusual way, I also have to say that I think it's fairer to persons who are accused. because they only have to deal with one agency.
I have been supporting that since I left the commission in 1990, and to the extent that I can commend the work of the committee and the House, that is the most important initiative I've seen in my 25 years as a securities lawyer.