I think it's pretty clear. I know the committee indicated the last time that they didn't think it was necessary to bring in the previous Liberal members on another issue dealing with the appeal division. We've spent a fair amount of time in this committee on the issue of lost Canadians. He's not here today, but Barry Devolin raised a very interesting question that made me realize it might be interesting to hear from these previous ministers. The committee may recall that Barry's question was pretty clear: why was there nothing done by the previous ministers on this particular issue? What was their hesitation?
I don't think the meeting would be very long. It would be very focused on trying to hear from them directly what the challenge was and what they saw internally as a problem. It's also an issue that we could ask our minister, the current minister, about when she comes here to deal with the estimates. We could ask her what holdups she's seen so we can compare her position with that of the previous government, and just find out what the holdup was.
The motion's pretty straightforward. As it's written, it just says “invite the members from Eglinton—Lawrence...York West...and Bourassa...to discuss the issue of lost Canadians and the actions they undertook to deal with this problem while serving as Ministers of Citizenship and Immigration”.
I just thought it would be useful to hear that, namely because of what Barry Devolin had asked of the committee.