Thanks, Mr. Chair.
I must say, Mr. Chair, that the minister was here an hour ago or less, and I think she repeated three times that there was extensive stakeholder outreach on this bill. It's really hard to square her claim of extensive stakeholder outreach when we have senior labour and a large railway company represented, along with the insurance sector, a short-line railway, and the Railway Association of Canada, all saying that there are serious problems with this bill.
I'm not sure where the minister was consulting, or with whom, but it's a little bit rich to come to this committee now, Mr. Chair, when we have very few meetings scheduled to deal with the bill, and to hear the depth of concern on this bill. I think what it's telling us is that this thing was cobbled together on an urgent basis, pre-election and post-budget, even though there was an 11% cut to the department of $202 million. They have come here to the committee and have brought us this bill, speeding it through, and we have the industry sector telling us, with labour, there are serious flaws in this bill.
Each of you said that there are unintended consequences, that there are distributive effects, and that it's about reducing underwriting uncertainty. It went on and on. Maybe I will ask you this: were any of you consulted on this bill? Did any of you sit down with the drafters inside Transport Canada and actually get asked what your core concerns were before this was cobbled together?
Mr. Benson, very quickly, please, and then we'll just go down the line.