My hope is that Mr. Lake won't interrupt me this time with a point of order.
But I want to put this on the record again, so that he is in fact listening as opposed to trying to make snide remarks about opposition members and impugn motive. Perhaps he'd like to listen to the following.
His whip has made it abundantly clear that they will not allow the suspension of the industry and heritage committees, for a variety of reasons, while this committee is going on. If this issue is so important to the government, they would certainly have taken the position that this committee takes precedence over the work of the other committees. This is not to slight those committees and the good work they're doing. A bit of preparation on behalf of the government would have been awfully helpful. If this is so urgent, then the government ought to have prepared itself in advance of this, as opposed to waiting for six months.
That being said, if the government or its members want to propose successive times at which we're going to meet “over and above”, I suggest that this would be futile, simply because we have a huge schedule ahead of us. I think we want to take the time to understand and legitimately take the opportunity to look at each and every case and at each and every witness and digest this appropriately. It has been suggested here that our level of preparation is high, while our resources are not what they are on the government side.
But if we want to strike a cooperative note, this is a terrible way to start, Mr. Lake. I would suggest that in order to get around this, we take a bit of time to deal with our respective whips to see whether there could be opportunity down the road for more time by appropriating more time for this committee versus the other two committees, the standing committees on heritage and on industry.
That being said, I believe, notwithstanding anything else here, that we should proceed to the vote. There is opportunity for cooperation, but if you guys are going to keep coming back and trying to make this some kind of spectacle in which you're blaming the opposition for everything under the sun, probably including next the sinking of the Titanic, I'd suggest that we start on a very different pace.
Thank you.