Industry committee  I agree with that.

Industry committee  No, I don't.

Industry committee  I agree. It would be desirable to explore whether or not we should move to a mandatory preclosing notification regime. I think we'd have to think carefully about how we implement that to make sure there is no unfairness for different types of investors. For example, if there's

Industry committee  I think it certainly is something that would be worth exploring to determine whether or not there could be a methodology developed that would give us an accurate assessment of whether or not the Investment Canada Act regime, or at least the net benefit portion of the regime, has

Industry committee  You are correct. I would assume that most acquisitions would involve the acquisition of some degree of IP, and that would be a reasonable assumption to make but, no, it's not a requirement to disclose whether IP—

Industry committee  I think it's important to have flexibility, and I think it's difficult to balance the need for flexibility with the need for certainty. I think the government has tried to do a good job in balancing that over the last couple of years since the national security review regime was

Industry committee  Yes, I do think the act is, generally speaking, well written. It covers a lot of transactions, a lot of foreign investment acquisitions—virtually all. Where I think there is a potential gap is in some of the areas that Mr. Balsillie has been talking about, which is with respect t

Industry committee  I would be agreeable to a proposal to engage in an ex post review of investments to measure the effectiveness of the Investment Canada Act. With respect to the specific proposal or suggestion to open the archives, I would hesitate to do that. There are statutory protections for

Industry committee  I have nothing to add to the prior response.

Industry committee  No, I don't think there is urgent need for greater transparency with respect to net benefit reviews. With respect to national security reviews, as per my prior statement, I think it would be helpful, as we have experience with a national security review regime, for the governmen

Industry committee  Okay.

Industry committee  I only got the last bit of that question. My apologies, I had audio difficulties.

Industry committee  I share Mr. Balsillie's concerns that there are gaps in the legislation. I think the legislation as it's currently drafted does a very good job with respect to monitoring the acquisition of controls of Canadian entities. In certain instances, there may be jurisdictional scope for

Industry committee  I'll try to take a shot at it, sure. I think my first response is that Canada is highly unusual compared to other jurisdictions in having an economic net benefit type of review for foreign investment. The vast majority of countries have either a national security review of foreig

Industry committee  Fair enough.