Mr. Speaker, I commend the hon. member from Oakville for suggesting that there was wide consultation, because there was. We all know that. It took a little better than four and a half years to go through the whole process.
The hon. member insisted that people at the FCM were thoroughly briefed on the bill two weeks ago, and that may very well be true. In fact, my consultation with people at the FCM corroborates that indeed they were briefed.
The interesting thing is what happened between the time the FCM people were briefed and the actual presentation of the bill. Clearly the FCM people then had to be advised that there were certain recommendations that were originally proposed to be included in the bill, but were in fact not in the bill. The addition of certain corporations to schedule 4, for example, was deleted.
The other issue is that the panel should have some teeth and that everything should not be at the discretion of the minister.
These recommendations were included in the report of the joint technical committee and the consultations which took place.
If the hon. member is so absolutely convinced that everything is hunky-dory with regard to the FCM and with regard to the briefing, why is it that not all of those things, which apparently he thought they understood, they apparently did not agree with?