Quickly, as we do have witnesses.... It's sort of unfortunate. What I really don't understand, and we've not actually got an answer yet from the Liberal leadership or from the party.... We had a full discussion with some people on the Emerson report, which is the extension to come in about wheat from the Fair Rail for Grain Farmers Act . We had a report and recommendations in the report. We had a number of the commodity organizations that wanted to have their say. We actually had them here. We didn't invite them here to talk; they only met with us separately, and then we sent them on their way because the leadership of the Liberal Party did not want to talk about the transportation and rail issues.
It's not just about grain. I actually talked with the fertilizer people this morning. They have the same sort of issues. They have the same things they want to talk about, but we just cut them off at the legs and said that we don't want them at this committee. We actually have a report and a recommendation. We could actually get their discussion and their recommendations. It comes from a report from this committee. We've done that. We've shut them out.
We have transportation and we have the TPP. We've had two rounds. We have folks here from the dairy industry who significantly get a lot of the communications and the talk about any trade deal that is ever signed. We have Mr. Glenn from the Canadian Young Farmers' Forum, who I had the very fortunate opportunity to be with at the young farmers out in Vancouver. However, we're stuck because all of a sudden, you want to derail this sort of issue and go to one where actually your own minister has talked about the timing in terms of it actually being the provinces right now that have to deal with this. They're the ones that will actually set some of the framework. They're the ones that will actually determine the funding part on their front. The federal government, at 60% basically helps to facilitate, negotiate with them, in terms of the final result, and you have to realize too that the federal government doesn't have a vote.
I'm trying to understand, Mr. Chairman, why we have this big desire to move on something that we all want to do, in a timely manner, but the Growing Forward 2 into Growing Forward 3 is not the issue today. It will be the issue when we come back, and in the summer, later on, the committee could be called, but right now, I agree with my colleague.... I'm looking at the wording and it's basically, I think, just to spend time. I'm not sure where it's going to go. In fact, I'm not so sure that your minister is inclusive at this stage of where it's going to go, and what our real purpose would be in terms of being able to come up with something that's very productive in terms of Growing Forward 3. It is an important document. It is important not only to the government and to the provinces, but particularly to all the commodities and the organizations that have an interest in it, including the innovative and research component of it.
Mr. Chair, I'm not going to take any more time. It's on the floor, but it's important that you hear from those of us who have actually had a pretty tight conversation with those commodity organizations and actually plan on listening to them before we make a decision to support moving ahead on something like this now.