Mr. Speaker, in response to the question from my colleague from Frontenac—Mégantic, I do indeed think his words were very aptly chosen. This Henry VIII-style clause more or less says “We are going to give the government the opportunity to amend the legislation without having to go back to the House”. This could have a significant economic impact.
We have already seen battles between the Minister of Heritage and the Minister of Industry on matters impacting on the cultural future of Quebec and Canada and we have seen that, with this federal government, culture was not always the aspect that won out and also, particularly, that the negotiations were always held in secret.
This clause could easily put us back into the same situation in future: international agreements could be changed and bring about changes in Canadian legislation without necessarily having been re-approved by Parliament.
The less this happens the better. The government over there, which is already bureaucracy-driven, has already given us plenty of proof that it would give itself additional powers over the heads of the elected representatives. This, I believe, would be extremely harmful to democracy in Canada.