Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We greatly appreciate the intention of this amendment. It was certainly always intended that those considerations would be taken into the regulatory-making process. However, the amendment could remove discretion from the government on what regulations are appropriate.
The challenge with the word “must” is that it cannot be guaranteed that consistency will be ensured. Softening the language to “may” or to “consider” consistency could work in that circumstance. Here we are asking ourselves what the consequence would be if there are contradictory regimes. We want to make sure that we're putting in place the best regulations that make sense for Canada's critical infrastructure in consideration of other requirements as well.
The other aspect is that the legislation itself was intended to be agnostic and not speak to very specific requirements. Those considerations were intended to be built into the regulations. There is additional consideration for the committee there as well.