Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the opportunity to be here. I have an opportunity to ask questions of our departmental officials when they come and speak to us at the transportation committee, so this is a rare opportunity for me and I thank my colleagues for giving me the opportunity to answer questions as well. Perhaps we'll get back to Ms. Shanahan's questions a little sooner than she might think because she asked one of the questions I had wanted to ask.
I've gone through the report. I have a number of questions I'd like to ask and I'm going to go through them in the order that they appear in the report.
In a follow-up to the question by Ms. Shanahan, I am also concerned by the report's comment on the anchorage systems and, in particular, about the last point:
While Transport Canada discussed the issue with passenger vehicle manufacturers, it had yet to propose a new regulation or issue an advisory for child restraint users. The department indicated to us that introducing a unique-to-Canada requirement for anchorage strength in passenger vehicles would be detrimental to trade.
Why is Transport Canada making safety decisions based on the impacts that regulations could have on trade and not solely on safety? Perhaps you could also speak to Transport Canada's role in handling safety and the manufacturers' role for figuring out how to make money within the safety regulations that Transport Canada might set.