Industry committee  Oh, sorry, you said “influence”. I thought you said “control”.

Industry committee  Control, yes, is not defined. Indirect and direct control are defined, though, in the act.

Industry committee  What the minister mentioned, I'm not sure.... I think the minister was talking about general discussions that he's had with stakeholders. I'm not aware of any specific round tables on the changes in the budget implementation bill. I would point out the fact that the minister meets many, many representatives of industrial sectors, internationally and in Canada, and investment comes up frequently as a topic.

Industry committee  There was a page in the BIA—or, sorry, in the budget bill, the documentation I saw, there was a page that described these changes.

Industry committee  As I mentioned, we were in cabinet secrecy for a number of months undertaking the work in support of it. Therefore, consultations.... At my level, this is what I can speak to. We did not have the ability to undertake consultations.

Industry committee  What section are you in, I'm sorry?

Industry committee  Influence is determined, as we noted earlier, on a case-by-case basis. It only presents an issue where there is indirect or direct control. In a case where a state-owned enterprise has direct or indirect control influence it becomes a tertiary concept because you already have damage-rated control in the first two points.

Industry committee  I think it's very well put. If you look at each of the instances where there's a lack of clarity and there's discretionary power with the minister, it's to permit the minister to safeguard the interests of Canadians. That's a balance we're interested in. This is not a question of the transactions being cleared as efficiently as possible from the market perspective, but ensuring that Canadians have a system, a foreign investment regime that adequately protects their interests.

Industry committee  I would agree. The changes are there to ensure that the government's policy intent as articulated in December...that the minister has the tools to ensure that the policy intent is achieved.

Industry committee  It has been something that has been mentioned by, I would say, think tanks and certain legal firms that represent foreign investors. In their efforts to have a maximum certainty, they wanted to have a prescribed definition of it, or a list, the way that some other countries do, like the United States.

Industry committee  I'm not. We're not aware of any studies on that. I'd clarify that it was a policy decision by the government to not have a prescribed definition for national security on the basis that the types of threats that Canada could face from period to period can change. Given the evolving nature of threats, you wouldn't want to have a definition of national security that precluded you from considering certain specific types of threats.

Industry committee  Absolutely. Matt will take the lead on that.

Industry committee  We don't have evidence of that.

Industry committee  In fact, it would do the opposite. If you look at it from a comparison of regulatory processes in many other countries, it's a very efficient process to obtain the approval or to have a transaction approved or not. There's not a set of regulatory.... It doesn't take place in every jurisdiction in the country.

Industry committee  By my count earlier today, there are 11 pages in the budget implementation bill.