And one talks, to be honest.
We've gone in public, and that's okay. I actually voted to do that. Arguing against it feels like arguing against the chair, which, of course, isn't the case. The actual motion is surrounded by the chair saying he'll have the discretion, so to argue against it says you really don't have confidence in the chair, or perhaps you don't, which is not the case, from my own personal perspective.
I'm not sure why we needed this immediate change, when, I think only a couple of months ago, just before we adjourned, we actually talked to this particular issue. It seems, at least on the face of it, that we're being more restrictive than we wanted to be earlier. I would hope that's not the intent. Otherwise, it seems as though we're starting in the wrong direction.
A couple of my friends on the other side said this is a four-year journey that we're undertaking. Perhaps it will be, or it might be longer, or shorter. Who knows? We'll know when we get there.
As much as I absolutely agree that having five folks come to have one person speak to us just doesn't make any sense from the perspective of time management and money when it comes to the committee's expenditure, I can remember times when I, as the deputy critic, sat on the wall because there were so many folks who came that I simply gave them my seat so they could have a mike, which they actually didn't use.
That's my only piece with this. The spirit, the intent, is for sure to keep the cost down. We'll use the Cattlemen's Association as a prime example, because I happen to know John Masswohl's late father, Rudi, very well. When I first came to this committee in late 2008, he walked through the door, and I saw his name, and he said, “Yeah, yeah, Rudi's my dad.” He knew I was from the Welland area and I actually sat on a board with his dad.
John's already in town, so it makes perfect sense for John to come and represent the Cattlemen's Association, unless he wants to send someone else. And I know over time the Cattlemen's Association have had some very fine ranchers here who also come to support John, basically saying, “Yeah, we agree with what he's saying.”
It seems to me if we take the spirit and the intent of trying to keep it that way, but keep it open, so that if one side or the other says, you know what, maybe we need to hear from not only the association--and I've heard in the past not everyone agrees with the association. Take the trade union movement, for instance. The union doesn't necessarily have unanimity of opinion. If you asked Buzz Hargrove, the past president of my union, to come before you, he might give you one statement. I'll leave the name of a local union's president out because this is on the public record, but he'd disagree with Buzz. Maybe we should have Buzz and that local union president come, because we're actually going to get two different opinions about the same organization.
I thought we narrowed it before in the spirit of trying to keep the costs down. It just seems to me now that we're really trying to squeeze tight, and then, unfortunately, placing the burden of making the decision on the chair, which makes the chair—