When we developed the provisions respecting the transfer, the instructions I had were to make the lid very tight in terms of covering all possible transactions. For example, if you simply refer to the sale of the property, of the bridge, what can happen is that you can transfer the stocks of the company that owns the bridge and you achieve the same purpose without infringing the act.
Really, the mandate I had was to make the lid very tight, and I also got the assistance of a specialist in corporate law just to be sure that, essentially, our provisions were very tight. This means in fact that essentially the intent is for all potential transfers, no matter for what reason they exist, would be covered.
Now, the motion before you wants to, if you will, establish a box around the GIC when the GIC makes their recommendations. In other words, it sets a series of conditions and says this is it, nothing outside these criteria. I understand the word “only” is removed, but it nevertheless puts some kind of limitation in terms of the GIC discretion.
The bill is looking at bridges in a very general and broad way, concerning transportation, to start with, trade, security, safety, all of those criteria, and all of these matters will become, if you will, the framework that will apply to GIC when making its decisions. In other words, GIC cannot make an arbitrary decision. The decision that has to be made has to be consistent with the spirit of the act so that it's consistent with Parliament's intent.
I guess the risk of enumerating is that it will be interpreted as limiting the discretion of GIC. I guess the risk, when you enumerate, is that you may not think about something that may happen in the future that would make sense and be consistent with the spirit of the bill, yet not be able to use it. That's the risk I wanted to explain to this committee at this stage in the discussion.