Industry committee  Frankly, as I said, the part that I worked on was more about reviewing the directives. I think we need to hit the sweet spot of being very well aware of the things around the national security issues while being open for business. Back in my day, on the net benefit side, the evaluation agency and so on, things were working properly.

Industry committee  Back in the day, we reviewed the threshold because there were two things we were very concerned about. One was what I described earlier about national security dealing with state-owned enterprise with capacity in terms of governments. At the same time, we were of the opinion that it was time to also review the threshold.

Industry committee  I checked the threshold. I see that there was some increase with some breakdowns. I would say that's hard for me; I'm not an expert in the area, but I certainly think that the threshold has to be.... You need to make sure that the other question is still there. Frankly, I cannot give you an expert opinion on that.

Industry committee  Yes, this is where I think striking the balance is of the essence. As I said earlier, if the legal framework is too rigid, then you are stuck with some stuff that is difficult to change. On the other hand, if you go with only some directives that can be changed by ministers and their successors, that sends funny signals in the market.

Industry committee  First, thank you, Mr. Généreux. I alluded to 2012 because the situation was more limited. In a context where foreign state-owned enterprises were increasingly coming forward to acquire companies in Canada, the main question was what was happening with governance rules. Canadians were generally greatly concerned.

Industry committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning, committee members. I would like to emphasize that I am appearing here as an individual. My name is Christian Paradis, legal counsel and former member of Parliament for the beautiful riding of Mégantic—L'Érable. I also served as a cabinet minister in the Harper government from 2008 until my retirement from politics in 2015.