Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I will be speaking against this motion because of what it does. It's really interesting how the parliamentary secretary some days wants to debate the motions and some days doesn't. They really wanted to debate the motion that I believe I had on prison farms, and that held up the committee's work because the majority that day wished to defeat it. And that's fine, it's defeated. It's not a problem with me. As I said to my colleagues, don't worry about it; they can vote against it and that is fine. So that motion is lost.
But he tries to leave the impression that it's the opposition members who take up the committee's time. It's not the case at all. If anybody ever played games in this committee, it's more often the government than it is the opposition.
Yes, we'd like to see your report on competitiveness dealt with. There is no question about that. But to support a motion that hamstrings this committee from doing its work in other areas... If we were to support that motion, this report, for whatever reason, might not get done for months.
The motion André has here is I think of an urgent basis. It's something the industry came forward with on an urgent basis and asked us to do. It should be something the government could quite simply support. I just referred to what I said previously on the motion, Mr. Chair, and that is that two years ago in December--under Chair James Bezan--we presented a report in the House on this very issue, and the government still has not dealt with this very issue. So I think we have a responsibility as a committee to--