Mr. Speaker, the hon. member and I do sit together on committee.
As a bit of history, we know that the Conflict of Interest Act was adopted as part of the Federal Accountability Act, in 2006. It came into force in 2007. It sets out statutory conflict of interest and post-employment rules for public office holders. These office holders include ministers, ministers of state, parliamentary secretaries, ministerial staff and advisers, and almost all positions appointed by the Governor in Council.
It also defines a category of reporting public office holders, and those reporting public office holders have additional and more stringent rules that apply to them. That category includes ministers, ministers of state, parliamentary secretaries, ministerial advisers, full-time ministerial staff, and full-time Governor in Council appointees.
We know that the Conflict of Interest Act is administered by the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner. The committee did make recommendations. It reflected on the assessment we heard many times that the Conflict of Interest Act is working well overall. The committee's recommendations generally proposed targeted improvements to the act rather than wholesale restructuring or repurposing. In particular, the recommendations sought to clarify ambiguous terms and concepts. Some of those are on preferential treatment, receipt of gifts, and so on.
Did the report include dissenting opinions? Yes, it did, as every report we have done at that committee basically does. There were dissenting opinions from the New Democratic Party and the Liberal Party of Canada. Those reports were attached to the initial report. In both of those cases, the dissenting opinions expressed the view that a wider set of amendments should have been recommended.