Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
There is one more substantive issue at subsection 16(1), which is linked to section 18, and it may be that this was something that was intended.... I'm just going to point out what I'm talking about. Subsection 16(1) indicates: “A Member shall not knowingly be a party to a contract of the Government of Canada or any federal agency or body under which the Member receives a benefit.” There's an amendment suggested. Then section 18 indicates something similar, but it indicates that the partnership in a private corporation that has a party to a contract.... So it's the same issue.
Where the amendment indicates that “unless the Commissioner is of the opinion that the contract is unlikely to affect the Member's obligations under this Code”, we just wanted to draw the committee's attention to the fact that in the Parliament of Canada Act at sections 32 and 33, this is something that affects the eligibility of a member, and so it may be affording the House, through the commissioner, a bit more discretion than is available in the law. While it is of course up to the House to determine how laws apply when it comes to its proceedings, it may have been intended that sections 16 and 18 were to reflect what was in the Parliament of Canada Act and put those into the code, because when this was created some of the other sections in the conflict of interest part of the Parliament of Canada Act were repealed.
I wanted to point that out.