The federal government has a lot of authority through various acts, whether through CFIA, whether through some of the federal-provincial agreements, and it's not unknown for the federal government to basically take charge and put the money out. Money has been expended before, and a bill has been sent to the provinces. Maybe that's what we ought to do in this case.
What I'm wondering is if we, as a committee, were to decide to call an emergency meeting for a Wednesday, Mr. Chair, who would be the players we'd have to call? Basically on this issue somebody has to take charge. I've been involved in federal-provincial negotiations, and I'm not blaming the federal government by any means. You can say this one's to blame, and that one's to blame, and years pass.
I really think we're at a point here, because we don't want our international credibility.... We have some authority as a committee, and I would suggest that if we knew who the key catalyst would be to move this thing along, whether it's the federal Minister of Health or the federal Minister of Agriculture or the president of CFIA or whoever, we should ask for an emergency meeting and say, look, get your act together; it's got to happen. Whether we ask all the players.... For that matter, we can subpoena people from the provinces, if we really want to, as a committee.
We cannot miss that deadline. It's that simple.