Madam Speaker, my colleague suggested that this bill intends to look at licensing, education and enforcement. That is not all that professional regulatory bodies do in the provinces. There is the task of being an ongoing watchdog which takes complaints from whoever is using that particular professional body, in this case immigrants. They would have the ability to complain to the statutory body. The statutory body would have the ability to audit, to go into the consultant's office and seize the consultant's files. It would be able to look at what the consultant had been doing. That requires a different set of powers. It is the same set of powers that provincial regulatory bodies have, as I have suggested.
Not only do we need to license consultants and indicate what they should be doing, but we also need to be able to monitor them. A watchdog function is needed. We need to be able to hear complaints. We need to ensure that people practise under certain rules of ethical conduct which the regulatory body would set up.
Ethics and conduct are a huge part of what the law society and the College of Physicians and Surgeons do. One could be the brightest person in the world, could have graduated from Oxford with a great medical degree, but if that person does not have the right ethics and his or her conduct toward patients is not proper, that person will be hauled on the carpet.
The watchdog function needs to be ongoing and there needs to be the ability to hear complaints, because how will we know if somebody is not practising properly? There has to be a complaints process that can follow through, investigate, audit, seize documents, and deal with the practitioners that are not practising properly.