Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-8, a massive bill, as has been mentioned. It is a bill which, when I hold it in my hands, increases my weight by about 10%.
When we look at the proposed amendments in Group No. 1, we see that they are there to improve the bill. I will speak specifically to Motion No. 1 right now, put forward by my colleague, which deals with the reporting section. The parliamentary secretary just stated that there is a provision in the bill for this. For clarity, I will read from page 15 under “Annual Report”. It states:
The Minister shall cause to be laid before each House of Parliament, not later than the fifth sitting day of that House after September 30 next following the end of each fiscal year, a report showing the operations of the Agency for that year and describing in aggregate form its conclusions on the compliance of financial institutions with the consumer provisions applicable to them in that year.
Do members notice who is reporting? It is the minister. The minister shall lay a report on the table. Of course the minister can say exactly what he or she wants. It is reported in the House and we all know what happens to reports. Routine proceedings take place every day in the House and someone presents a report under the tabling of documents. Under one of those proceedings, the minister could simply table a report showing the operations of the agency.
Motion No. 1 is really quite different. It is difficult by reasoned debate to persuade the members on the other side of the House because I am not sure they are listening. If they are listening, they do not show it by their body language. All we see is a bunch of green foreheads over there that are not really—