Thank you.
I'm surprised that this is appearing to be controversial or in any way partisan. I would put forward the possibility, having had a town hall with the minister in my own riding, that it could be that there are reports from all her consultations submitted from me, in the case of the hearing that she attended, which was the town hall we had on Saturna Island. I know that before she got to Saturna, she was in Whitehorse with Larry Bagnell. He may have submitted a report. I don't think there's any intent to be putting her on the spot, or not bringing her back to the committee. What I look at is how we have consulted Canadians. There have been three streams. There's what we've done as a committee, which is extensive, there's what individual MPs have done in their own town halls, and there's this other piece, with the parliamentary secretary and the minister consulting with Canadians.
If her summary is one page that says, “I was in the following places, and as you know reports have been filed by the relevant MPs in those places“, then that's it. I saw this as an invitation to cover off the possibility that, as busy as the minister is, we don't want our procedural rules...October 14 was the deadline. I don't want to suddenly find ourselves unable to accept a written submission. I don't want her to come back before the committee as a witness. I don't see any benefit in that. I'll be blunt about it. I don't see any point in that, but I don't want to foreclose any consultation evidence into this committee from the minister, which I've seen as an important part of the stream of information that we are receiving as a committee.