I would say the financial aspects of Bill C-33 are where we have the biggest questions about the bill. We first saw the bill when it was tabled in the House of Commons. We reviewed it and addressed questions and concerns in a letter to Minister Alghabra in December.
We had a good, productive meeting with Transport Canada officials one month ago today, but we have big questions about how the borrowing process will work. There are extensive new financial reporting requirements in the bill that are proposed as well. Ports are already reporting significant amounts of data on a quarterly basis. We don't have an answer to the question, “Is what's being provided today sufficient to meet what is desired, or is it an onerous new requirement in terms of reporting?”
We've been told that it's meant to inform a borrowing limit process that will be more dynamic and more responsive to changing business environments, but we don't have the answers on what that looks like or how it works.
If the reporting requirements are similar to what is happening today and if the borrowing process is more dynamic than the hard limits we have today, that could be an improvement. It's not what we were asking for, but we simply do not have the answers. We hope to get them before we come back before this committee, because otherwise we can't say whether this bill is a modest improvement or if it actually might be quite negative.