In general, I want to highlight.... Maybe I'll just start by realizing that my subamendment has the typo from the original amendment. We need to edit “meetings” and put it as the singular.
With regard to the amendment itself and the importance of doing a prestudy on Bill C-73, it is a really important bill that we want to tackle and it is important when we're thinking about biodiversity and accountability. We want to make sure that we have the minister come this Wednesday, which everyone's in agreement with.
As this is clearly a conversation that's going to take a little while, normally we would schedule another study from the list of studies that we need to do at a subcommittee meeting so that we wouldn't take up witness time. This is a way for us to make sure that this conversation can happen.
My big priority is to make sure that we honour the wishes of the nations that have asked Parliament to look at the contamination in Fort Chipewyan. I want to make sure that the remaining meetings of this prestudy don't displace that and allow the current government to avoid accountability on the contamination and the lack of transparency and communication to those nations in Fort Chipewyan.
I also want to make sure that we get to this prestudy on Bill C-73. It is critical. I'm hoping that this is a way that we can have the whole committee come together, pass this motion today and then move on with the business at hand.