Mr. Chair, I think there's a little bit of confusion in relation to the Expropriations Act.
My understanding is that the law is such that it's beyond our power in this committee to take away the power of expropriation. What I think they're trying to do in this is make sure that it's not....
Expropriation, by the way, deals with fair market value, with any other person. They can't take it away unless there's fair market value paid, and in fact that can be challenged with the court. So certainly, first of all, there would be negotiations.
But my understanding of this particular proposed section is that we want to include the minister's having notice of it before the commission does anything, so that the minister could be involved and in fact, in my reading of the clause, not allow them to do it. My understanding is that they could do it now without going to the minister, if I'm not wrong. This would require them to go to the minister so that the minister could be involved and say exactly what we've heard from citizens here: “No, I don't want my land sold. I want to keep it in my family and I want to keep it for myself.” So the minister would be involved to restrict their ability to expropriate.
I think what your proposal is doing is acting in the reverse of what you want. But possibly Monsieur Dubé could clarify this. I haven't received a brief on it.