Yes. Thank you, Chair.
Before all the points of order were raised, I was in the process of saying we've had many witnesses come in front of the committee. We've been discussing biotechnology as our subject matter, of course. We've had discussions on GM as well, which we've always recognized as being a subset, quite frankly a small subset, of the biotechnology study. Everyone has been in agreement that we have to be careful that our biotechnology study does not immediately gravitate to GM and gets stuck on GM because it's just a small portion of the biotechnology sector.
Alfalfa is a small part of GM, which is part of a bigger biotechnology sector. What we have here is a microscope going in on one tiny aspect of our study. To be quite honest, Chair, and to be fair to the committee, to pass a motion like this it would only be right to have witnesses come in front of committee to discuss that aspect of the motion. It's not really fair to the committee for witnesses to come in to talk about biotechnology in general and a few specifics here and there.
One of the specifics they dwelt on, perhaps only momentarily, had to do with alfalfa, and, bang, that's what the opposition latches on to and we have a motion in front of the committee dealing with this specific issue. Yet we've had no witnesses come to talk specifically about what the impact of a moratorium might be, to talk about GM alfalfa at length. Some discussed it for more than just a moment.
We should be getting a number of different witnesses in front of committee to present their point of view on this very motion, yet that hasn't happened. They just want to ram it through, let's get to the vote. Why do we have to get to the vote? We have to get to the vote because Mr. Easter has to appease those whom he has disenfranchised.
I would say, Chair, that this motion is not well presented in front of the committee. If Mr. Easter had wanted to present this in a positive way, he would have raised this at steering committee. You're chair of the steering committee. That's why we have a steering committee--