Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It is good that we are having this discussion, but perhaps it would have been better had we adopted the motion on the steering committee right from the outset. At the end of the day, perhaps it is better we do things this way. Furthermore, we can't leave here, even with a steering committee, without a general idea of this committee's mandate, if indeed it is ever struck.
As I said, we want to work intensively. I'm afraid, however, given the number of witnesses we have here, that we won't be able to hear from everybody who wants to be heard, and yet, hearing them all is part of the duty we have to be transparent. If you take a look at the NDP's proposal, I think there's a way we can work out a timetable. We could quite easily hear from witnesses for five weeks, in other words our committee would start with today's witnesses and continue through till the 2nd of March. We could set aside the two recess weeks to give us time to really digest the testimony we will have heard up until that point, and to prepare amendments. When we're back, in the week beginning March 19, we could begin the clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-30.
I don't think we'll have the timetable we expected, in other words a study of approximately four months, but we would be giving ourselves five weeks to listen to witnesses and digest the information we will have heard. In the two-week recess, we'd work on any amendments. After the recess, we could start the clause-by-clause consideration. The steering committee, based on this framework, could draw up a list of topics and identify potential witnesses.
I think that that would be a compromise between what some people seem to want to do, that is have Bill C-30 passed quickly, and a very in-depth study which would take us four or five months, which is what some other members would prefer. There is a compromise position we can reach, and in my opinion, that middle ground is what we have got to look for.