Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Before I get into the substantive points and questions for officials on the amendment, I have to respond to the rather bizarre strawman argument we just heard from Mr. Ramsay. He said that because the Liberals voted against a previous amendment that would have made the bill better, they can't support this amendment, as it would lead to an inconsistency between the two. The problem there, which is glaring to people certainly on this side of the table—and potentially that side, given that Ms. May has the fortune of sitting on the government bench right now—is that the Liberals are basically saying that because they made a bad decision earlier, in the interest of consistency, they now need to stick to that. I think it's a bad decision, but they obviously disagree with that point.
The standard of proof that we're seeking here in part 1 of the bill is incredibly germane. It is actually one of the areas where I had hoped at the outset of this we would have collaboration across the aisle. There has been no collaboration from the Liberals on Bill C-22 in general. We've seen minimal, if any, collaboration on part 1, where I think there's actually significantly less daylight between us. I would note that we have repeatedly made the offer to pass part 1, which is consistent with the authorities and powers that the police I've been speaking to in St. Thomas and London and the police chiefs in other parts of the country are actually asking for.
This idea that part 1 cannot exist without part 2 is entirely false—and, if so, that actually means that perhaps there are more problems with part 1 than people have realized. I think part 1 stands on its own and deals with the need to have expeditious production orders. I think confirmation of service is incredibly reasonable, when I hear the time delays that police on the ground often encounter trying to find information to seek what would go into a production order. We already have, from our officials here, a pretty important recognition that this is fundamentally a different mechanism from the one that exists for domestic service providers. This is a request and not an order.
I don't know if this next question would go to our law enforcement officials. I think it probably should, to start, but anyone should feel free to add to it.
We have to situate this amendment into the broader context of the clause itself. What is the current process for accessing this information from a foreign telecom provider, and what would it be if clause 7, unamended, were adopted?