It is wrong to say that the opposition refuses to discuss the report. I can even prove it. I had annotated most pages of the report and I was prepared to work on that from today forward. The government is filibustering. It is targeting a motion that was tabled a long time ago and which we have had ample time to discuss. The members of the opposition whom, I would point out to you, constitute a majority, have compromised. In order to speed things up, they decided that it would be a good idea to deal with two motions that were tabled a long time ago. The way to deal with them is to wrap up the debate and move to a vote. We have always worked in that way.
The parliamentary secretary has the right to filibuster. We have seen that often. He has the right to do so, but he should not come and say that it is the opposition's fault because they do not want to discuss something else. He is the one who decided to discuss the issue at length. We must be very careful what we say. The compromise we made appears perfectly acceptable to me. It is a question of dealing with two motions in order to move as quickly as possible to deal with the report.
I would also like to bring to the attention of the committee the fact that the government has carried out its own consultations. They have a draft report that will potentially become the national agriculture policy. This trip meant complementary work that the committee decided to carry out. I am not saying that it was not useful or important, but the fact remains that many of these aspects will match up. The people we heard from in Montmagny, in Quebec, also went to Saint-Hyacinthe to say what they had to say during the government's consultations. All will not be lost, even if we decide to not study this right away, but I don't believe that setting aside this work is the answer. We did not do all of this for nothing.
As far as the agricultural policy framework is concerned, I believe that the committee has a contribution to make, but the parliamentary secretary will have to accept that we vote on these motions and that we do our job.