Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question of the hon. member. Nobody in the House would disagree with the intent of the whistleblowing amendments. The intent is sound, but unfortunately there are toxic levels of naiveté in the hon. member's arguments. The enforceability of the whistleblowing amendments would potentially create a regulatory nightmare.
The head of the Competition Bureau, Konrad Von Finckenstein, has said effectively that he will not provide either support or opposition to it. I will read his response again:
—the amendments were put forward not by me and not on our suggestion but by ... a member of the House.... I am neutral on it ... I see the deterrent value .... On the other hand, I do not want to create something that is going to cause employers a lot of harm or interfere with normal employee relations or is going to cause me of useless work.
The Canadian Bar Association has indicated that there are significant concerns about the amendments. The enforceability of these amendments is dubious at best. The Dubin report basically found that whistleblower legislation in most jurisdictions has had little impact.
We are not disagreeing with the intent. What we are saying is that we need to have more study and more diligence. We should not rush forward to implement politically expedient but unrealistic public policy that in the long term does not serve the needs of Canadians and does not even meet the intent of the amendments.
We have to be realistic. We must not just do what is politically palatable. Sometimes we have to do what is actually effective and realistic.