Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to hear the member talk about the whole area of franchises. I did some work on this about 20 years ago and I found that conservative Alberta was the only province in the country to have actual franchise legislation. It was excellent legislation. I believe it was brought in during Peter Lougheed's time but, unfortunately, it was removed under Ralph Klein. I believe there is still no franchise legislation in any provinces other than what we saw in Alberta at the time.
The beauty of that legislation was that it required, among other things, that all deposits had to be in trust until promises were kept by the franchisors. Let us say that the franchisors promised advertising. An Ontario company would promise advertising in Saskatchewan if people signed up. However, when people signed up, the franchisors would not provide the advertising. The rule in Alberta was that if franchisors promised something like advertising, that unless and until they delivered, they were not to transfer those fees. I think that is a burgeoning area of interest right now.
Does the member think this bill might impact that franchise area? Does he not think there is room in the federal government for franchise legislation, at least with regard to federally registered companies? I know the provinces hold jurisdiction over provincial franchises, provincially regulated companies, but there are many federally regulated franchisors out there and I wonder whether they could be picked up by federal franchise legislation. In addition, I would like the member to expand on how he sees this bill being applicable to franchises.