Mr. Speaker, the member has raised excellent issues. I certainly think both of them should be explored further.
As for us and the United States, the member asked whether I think this bill provides Canadian authority. This bill certainly is all about providing independent Canadian authority to do things. The question there, I think, is whether the resources are going to be available to do things sufficiently in Canada. As I said in my speech, if we do not have the person power, then we will not be able to do those types of inspections in Canada.
I definitely think we should also develop communication links with all countries that are doing such inspections. There is no use reinventing the wheel; I do not care who finds out that a product is dangerous. I met with ministers of justice of the Americas at a meeting on Monday in Washington, where we shared information with respect to problems in other countries. It would be good if we could learn about problems in other countries and then add them to our own database, but we must make sure that we have sufficient resources to deal with that.
With regard to my colleague's second question about discretion, it can be a problem in two ways. One of the good things about discretion in the bill is that it would require the test results to be made public, and I think that is good. I agree with the member that if an inspector finds something that is obviously dangerous then it should be made public. However, discretion can be a problem in the opposite direction. If there is too much latitude, then an inspector could unnecessarily harass a particular company more so than another company.
We have to give the people who are knowledgeable and who are experts in the area enough discretion to make reasonable decisions, but there also has to be some type of oversight, some type of appeal process, and public information. We have to provide some type of appeal process if it is felt that inappropriate action was taken by an inspector. We also have to keep the public informed.