Thanks, James.
I would like to reiterate what Paul and André have said. When I heard the announcement--actually, I was asked to respond, but I didn't have a chance to, since I was out of cell range and all that kind of stuff--I just found it kind of strange. Although I welcome the initiative of the Prime Minister, I would have thought there would have been some kind of wording that said, for instance, “We're watching closely what the committee is doing, and we're going to work closely with the committee to try to implement the recommendations.” But that kind of cooperative spirit wasn't shown.
As well, I question the relevance of what we were doing here. I question the relevance of bothering all these people to come as witnesses here.
Our minister is a former chair of this committee. Obviously he knows how things work and how we try to work things together.
To my colleagues across the table, I'm just wondering what you think. I know we often don't agree, but I do have a lot of respect for your opinions. I don't want to put you on the spot, so I'm not sure if you want to respond now or later, but we have worked together. This is not a contentious issue. It's not something we're divided on. The recommendations, with some modifications and some compromise, we probably will all agree on, and probably unanimously. I don't quite understand why this is happening, and I'm just wondering if you feel the same way I feel. Is the work of this committee relevant? And if we feel that maybe we've all been slighted, perhaps we should have some kind of wording to our minister in terms of trying to make this a priority.
I'm not sure how to attack this. I just know that I'm going to be throwing some stuff together today, because I'm not happy with what has happened. I'll just leave it at that.
Thank you.