I don't know who's going to take the question, and you will have to help me with that, officials, but I'll ask for commentary depending upon how you answer.
Here's my problem. The process that's put in place for the minister to make a determination on whether there are significant public interest considerations is so broad and so open-ended I don't know why any companies would ever try to do a joint venture in this country. I'll bring you through the process. Here's what bugs me.
The very first part of it, it's 120 days. This bears repeating because I don't think people understand exactly how difficult this is going to be. The minister or somebody finds out that there is this proposed arrangement. The minister has 45 days after that in order to make some kind of decision as to whether or not to move forward, and then the real time starts. The commissioner of competition has 120 days, and then after that the minister has another 150 days to send a report to the parties. The parties have 30 days to send the response back. The minister has 45 days to give a preliminary decision. The parties have 30 days to respond to the preliminary decision. The minister then within 30 days of those responses has to give a final decision. But wait, there's more, because he then has the ability two years after the deal has been approved to go back and say that he doesn't like that deal on the basis of public interest consideration. The final caveat to all that is found in the proposal, where it says, by the way, all of this timing, the minister can extend it by himself.
On my count, we're looking at 13 and a half months of a flat out process before you get a final decision, which isn't final, and you have no certainty that it's going to get handled in 13 and a half months.
How is that even possible to get investment in this country if that's the kind of process we're going to put companies through?