At first blush, I thought the same. Quite frankly, I liked Mr. McGuinty's amendment until I started to think about it, and I thought, what does “advertising in all media” mean?
If you would think about the ramifications of this, first of all, everyone here, I think, understands the law, and anyone can seek an order of mandamus compelling a minister to do something. And I think, Mr. Scott, as a former minister, you would agree that most of the legislation we have in Canada already deals with “may, on the recommendation of the Minister”. Most of it does, especially in circumstances such as this. As to “advertising in all media”.... There's no question that the intent of the government in this particular case is to regulate, especially in relation to air fares, especially in relation to the Internet and other things. But if you look at the legislation, including that, it could become a position, firstly, that would be very onerous for the government and that would in fact be one that would see civil liability flow to the Canadian taxpayer.
If you look at Ontario and Quebec legislation, I think you will find that it has the word “may”. I don't know that for certain, but I would suggest it would. Most of the legislation I see gives the flexibility to the minister, gives the flexibility to the government to impose that type of thing. As well, I think it safeguards the government in allowing them to pick the instances in which it is appropriate to have legislation, and in which it is not appropriate, and then they don't have to legislate in those particular instances. It does give the minister flexibility.
So the first thing I would suggest is that it should stay as is.
Certainly the minister is under an obligation to do so from a government perspective and also in accordance with the will of the House, but secondly, it gives him or her flexibility to determine which pieces of media need to be regulated and which don't need to be regulated. I think “media” is a pretty broad term.
So I would leave that with the committee for discussion.
I think I could probably provide a couple of compromises that the government would be prepared to live with, but I think if you look at the phrase “in all media”, it does leave us open to some orders of mandamus and, quite frankly, some civil liability that might not be looked at by this committee at this stage.