Mr. Chair, it seems to me the way to proceed is to see what our possibilities are and where there is common ground, get that out of the way, and then zero in on the differences.
The last work plan we submitted anticipated that there would be four sessions, and then we decided to open it up. Did you make it that we have actually six sessions for witnesses before we have to do clause-by-clause on the 5th? I think it's the 6th.
Okay. So the good news is that we actually have a couple of extra sessions beyond what we worked on.
I think the second piece of good news is that if I were to look for commonality, there is I think one session that deals with accountability issues. That is covered in our work plan as meeting number four, and in the Conservative work plan, although these meetings are not numbered, it's section 10 issues, where we have issues about the Auditor General's office, and the witnesses seem to be more or less the same. So it seems to me that if we take that off the table as being agreed upon--that is to say, it will be the last session of witnesses--I think there's enough commonality there.
What we then come down to is that we have five sessions into which we must find a space or a reorganization for three sessions from the opposition list and five sessions from the Conservative list. So now the challenge comes down to finding the place where we can again tighten up the list, perhaps, and find any more common ground.
One of the questions that obviously stands out, where there's a real difference of opinion--at least, on the two proposed lists--is that on the list of opposition witnesses we have two sessions that deal with an update on impacts. In other words, it's all about urgency. I cannot find a similar section in the Conservative plan, so that's a clear difference. On this side, given how this file is evolving and just to remind ourselves of why we're doing this, what it's about--climate change, global warming--I think we as a group would very much insist that we have a session on impacts. Once we get beyond that, the only other question is whether in fact on the impact side it may be possible to take some of the....
Well, I guess there are two kinds of impacts. There are the impacts of global warming itself and there are the impacts of attempting to do something about it. So there are two kinds of impacts: what is the cost of inaction, as Nicholas Stern would say, and what is the cost of action? Maybe that's one way we can pull out some of these witnesses.
Maybe that's really what we're talking about, and maybe we need another session, and you see, I think if I look at the Conservative list, the whole concept of target setting, action to date, and previous plans seems to me to be very much a similar kind of exercise. It's the history of what we've tried to do and what we're trying to learn from that, and how that would be reflected in what we're trying to do in this legislation.
That's something we would all want to be part of, so that's a third session, and then maybe a session on mechanisms. In other words, we would clearly want to know the plans and we will have a chance to do so, because, fortuitously, the Nairobi meeting will update us.
As I remember from Montreal, part of the issue is what we do after 2012. Once we have that information, we should somehow incorporate that understanding of international mechanisms and what penalties would look like and what new targets would look like, with regard to how that would affect the proposed bill.
I see four topics where we can rejig these things and get a balanced witness list. That leaves us a fifth. The fifth session would be a reminder; it was on our list as meeting number three, which is a reminder of how other countries are doing, because this is very much part of the debate. We've had a lot of discussion about other countries not meeting their targets. What are they doing about it? We could benefit from an update about all that, and then we go to the accountability issues and a sixth session with the Auditor General. Then we go to clause-by-clause.
Does that help a bit?
