Obviously, I can't speak to the government's position on the bill as a whole. I can clarify that the way the bill is structured—and this was obviously stated by the Competition Bureau members when they were at committee—so that the commissioner of competition does not have the final say on a joint venture that has been applied for, obviously. That's not to say the commissioner's views are shut out of the process or not taken into account. One of the main reasons there's a public report aspect of it is obviously so that there is some accountability behind the minister of transport's ultimate decision.
The public can judge, essentially, based on the findings of the Competition Bureau, whether they agree with the public interest rationale. It's deliberately designed to be a transparent process that weighs different factors.
At the end of the day, I wouldn't say that bureau representatives stated this would weaken competition. I don't think they would want to speculate on what the outcomes would be following any passage of the bill, but obviously their role in the process becomes a little bit different, keeping in mind that at present already the commissioner of competition cannot unilaterally impose constraints. It's still done in an adjudicative process.
Effectively, the commissioner still has a forum to air his or her views on a potential transaction, purely based on antitrust principles and competition economics. At the end of the day, that gets weighed by the minister of transport, who rules on a broader variety of factors that take into account other considerations that might go beyond a more strict antitrust analysis.
Ultimately, I can't comment on what might have happened in the 2011 proposal by Air Canada and United. Obviously, a consent agreement was reached in that case that did seek to remedy routes, but that's not to say that something like that wouldn't happen, because obviously there's an opportunity for conditions still to be imposed upon approval of a JV.