Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
You have before you, as per my distribution, an amendment to Mr. Fast's motion, in both official languages. I'm not going to read it for you.
The intent of that amendment to Mr. Fast's motion is to give some pretty specific indications about what the minister can do and ought to do if this committee were to accept the motion. Specifically, it says: (1) that the minister has to present a directive for a change in the regulations in order to find consistency in the language that ensures a definition of “letter” is consistent; and (2) that the exclusive privilege relates to domestic letters; it does not deal with international remailers.
I too have read the judgment of the other day. I think the reason we're in a position where we're reading these judgments is precisely because we have not asked the government, the minister, to act in a way that is available for him to act.
So while Mr. Fast says he would like the committee to give the minister some direction, I wanted to narrow it down and say, well, we've also done a little bit of homework, and this is the only way he can act in order to prevent the kinds of decisions on injunctions presented by the decision yesterday from putting all these businesses out of business and all of their employees out on the street.
If this committee is going to deliver a message, then it can do it in a prescriptive fashion, and that's the intent of my amendment. I'm hoping that Mr. Fast will accept this as a friendly amendment.