Mr. Speaker, the answer to the last question is that this bill is related to franchises. A fraud is a fraud is a fraud. The problem is getting in on a franchise scenario after the thing goes bad, getting the evidence of the deceit, of the fraud.
The biggest reason why I think we do not have provincial legislation governing franchises is the big boys. We all know who the big boys are: huge multi-billion dollar enterprises that properly use franchises in food service, restaurants, retailing, doughnuts. I will not mention any names. The big boys say please do not over-regulate this business area, because it would clog the thing and give rise to all kinds of problems and it would be worse off after the governments legislate. The provinces have said that they would leave it there. The problem is that the little guy is getting hurt and defrauded from time to time.
The federal government would have difficulty legislating in relation to franchises, because I think it is pretty much accepted to be a provincial jurisdiction, but in the meantime, there are smaller investors who are getting hurt. It is really sad when we see it. Then we look back with 20:20 hindsight and ask how they could be so dumb to leave $100,000 with this guy when they never got to see what their real estate location looked like. They might say that it was their brother-in-law or somebody who knew somebody else and they came from their home town. It is really sad, and there is an incapacity of government on a public policy basis to provide solutions to that. It is an unresolved issue, as my friend points out.