Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to comment on the review of the act and why we are doing these two minor amendments now. First, the member is right in that there is a review of the act coming. I appreciate the work the Bloc has done and for some interesting thoughts for amendments that we might put in.
We have to take care of things where we are out of step now with the international community. The scheduled review of the act is going to occur in 2006 and any change to this will also be influenced by the review of the Kimberley process certification scheme which is also going to occur in 2006.
Since the recommendations from the scheme review are expected to be only approved at the plenary in late 2007, any changes required to the process by this review and by extension to Canada's act would be delayed until 2008. Given this timeframe it is imperative that we make these amendments right now.
We want to demonstrate that we have taken the necessary steps to meet the requirements of the process by the next plenary meeting expected to occur this year. Non-compliance with the process could jeopardize Canada's participation in the international scheme.
As the member suggested, we are just making two minor amendments. One would allow us to publish our statistics and we are eliminating the very tiny diamonds that are valued in cents.
If we are not in compliance with the scheme as set internationally, it jeopardizes our participation in the scheme. Considering that well over 99% of the countries involved in diamonds are in this scheme, it could jeopardize our status until the changes I mentioned occur in 2008 and put in great jeopardy a $2 billion industry in Canada and the related 4,000 jobs.
In that all the parties that have spoken have expressed their support and in that they are minor administrative amendments, I would hope that we could get on with this very quickly. I definitely appreciate the comments the member made about other improvements that we could look at. We will certainly have those in the record as we do the entire review of the act that is proposed for 2006.