I think all of what you've said is in fact what's happening. We've all been approached by people who have ideas about Growing Forward 3. Unfortunately, none of us at this table have been invited to that table.
If we hear from all these people, what will the technical process be? Will we be invited by the minister to take what we hear to that table? We haven't been invited, so I'm not prepared to undertake a study. Ministers in the past have said, “Look, you travel the country, hear from Canadians, and we're going to take that within our arsenal to the negotiation table to say our standing committee has heard this from Canadians, and we now come to the table with this; we can negotiate a deal having heard this.” What we did in that circumstance would have been constructive.
But if we're going to be doing busy work or a public relations exercise while the minister and the respective provincial ministers are sequestered elsewhere, if we're going to be doing this parallel system but have no say in the outcome of the negotiations, then all we're doing is busy work; we'll not have actually been involved in anything.
The negotiations are already in place. They've already started that—unless we've been misled.
Can the parliamentary secretary assure us that negotiations have not started with the provinces, and that if we do this, that we're actually being invited by the minister to do this before he enters those negotiations?