Thank you, Mr. Chair and Mr. Ménard, for that gracious accommodation.
Thank you, gentlemen, for being here.
Let me follow up on the chair's direction. The major problem I have with Bill C-12 is the one you've raised, Mr. Knight, and I think docteur Duplessis, vous aussi, in the sense that the bill in two very peripheral areas doesn't seem to bring in the municipal level of government or the significant agencies that actually deal with the problem, particularly at first phase.
It's a reality that we live in a federated country and the question we put to the officials, perhaps more general than this is, was how do you interact. We were given assurances that in fact the interaction is occurring but it's at an informal level--which is perhaps not a strong enough term, but it's certainly not legislatively mandated because it can't be legislatively mandated.
I wonder if you have any suggestions as to how we get around that conundrum. How do we amend this bill to in effect create the formal relationship between a lower level of government directly and the NGOs?