Mr. Speaker, first, we need to talk about what a facilitation payment is. I guess we would call it a “grease payment”. It is a payment made for something that should be given, regardless. In other words, if a government official is supposed to give, or provide for a mining company, a report before it can begin its business, it is maybe a little bit of a grease payment. It gets the guy working a little bit faster, gets that thing happening quicker and gets them a little up on the competition.
We have added to this bill the provision that that would become illegal. In the past bill, there was a provision for that sort of thing; it was for something that was not business related, just part of the regular goings on. That will no longer be the case.
However, we will give them an opportunity to implement this. I believe there is a period of a year's time for that to take place. Once that takes place, this, too, will become part of the Criminal Code and will no longer be acceptable.