Finance committee  Mr. Chair, a third option for the new government could be “cleaning up the Liberal mess”.

Finance committee  Aw, Mr. Chair, come on.

Finance committee  I guess this is more of a question than anything else. Obviously, the witnesses would be here today and tomorrow. Has there been discussion? Do we have any indication of who those witnesses are, at this point? If we're lining people up for this afternoon, I'm assuming that the work has already been done on that.

Finance committee  Have some of them been lined up for this afternoon—

Finance committee  Okay. So the officials will be here this afternoon, and maybe this afternoon we'll get a list of who will be appearing tomorrow. Is that the idea?

Finance committee  The issue we had here is around taking the regulatory body that exists now, with which there are a whole host of issues, and allowing it to become essentially the college. That's where our concerns are. That's why we have these amendments.

Finance committee  No, that same rationale would apply from the previous one, I think.

Finance committee  They have, yes. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Finance committee  Thanks, Mr. Chair. This rationale will also apply for CPC-8 and CPC-9 as well, so I'll share that with the committee now, and if there's any further discussion, I'll possibly contribute to it. In terms of introducing the three amendments, all relate to these clauses that would see the full cost of administering the legislation transferred to the private sector, and a number of witnesses expressed concern that this would be inconsistent with the current policy and practice of the government.

Finance committee  Mr. Chair, this one obviously came from one of my colleagues, and I'll share her rationale on it. She believes that it's in keeping with the spirit of the clause but strengthens it a bit and provides a little greater clarity in terms of the purposes and principles.

Finance committee  Okay.

Finance committee  Can I just...?

Finance committee  You're convinced that it won't have much take-up, so therefore, it maybe won't have that intended effect. Is that what I'm hearing?

Finance committee  That's interesting. The other angle that concerns me, and I want to hear your thoughts on this, is with regard to the government's equity portion of this. I know it's hard to imagine in most markets in Canada right now, but there are times when housing prices can decline. We don't know the details, but if this were to end up being such that we would be exposing the taxpayer to some risk if home prices were to decline, would the government's share of equity also decline?

Finance committee  Okay. Thanks.