Mr. Chair, let me just say at the outset that what I'm about to say is not diminishing my respect for you as chair. I think you've done an honourable job as chair, and I realize that being chair in a minority situation, when you don't have the majority, on your side is very difficult. So from time to time we have to give, and we have to learn to take it on the chin sometimes. We sometimes give a lot to get a little; sometimes we give a little to get a lot. If we learn to do that, I think we can continue to do that.
But I think there's been a bad spirit at this committee for the last meetings. I think we have to go beyond that and get beyond that kind of thing. If we're going to continue to do that, then we're going to go nowhere.
I, as much as anyone around this table, and those of us who travel with the committee, know it's hard work. A lot of work went into this. A lot of farmers are depending on us doing this, and whether, even when we get the report in, we can really effectively put together an APF framework in time for March 31, 2008, is even questionable at best. But I think we need to attempt to be there.
I would suggest, in the spirit of working together, that we move to dealing with the motions. I think there's adequate time.
I've been at meetings where we've had to adjourn the meeting because there was a disagreement among members at the table, and I supported the opposition, the Conservative Party at that time or the Reform Party at that time, to shut down the meeting because we weren't going anywhere. We came back at the next meeting and did the work in two hours. So we can do this work that has to be done in terms of this APF study that we've done.
I believe that today, in the spirit of working together, we can decide we're going to deal with these motions, but if we're going to take an acrimonious attitude about everything and we want to fight and debate and talk these things out, we're going to go nowhere. If we're going to have that over our shoulders going through this APF, we're going to have the same thing there, and I don't think that's where we want to go.
I would, in the spirit of cooperation, seek the cooperation of all parties here today to work together and get these motions out of the way, if it takes today to do it, but then move forward in a new spirit as we try to get to the APF, because that is the important one, the one we want to get right. Moving forward, that is going to be the policy we work from for the next five years.