Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I agree with Ms. Freeman's points and some of the witnesses she proposed. This is an extremely comprehensive issue.
It is interesting going through the documentation. I think the Library of Parliament today did a very good job. It is interesting especially when you look at New Zealand, which seems to me at first blush to break down into finer points such as agriculture, building, housing, construction, education, etc.
So I do think we would need a witness from that area. But also it would be useful in that, much as Ms. Block said, I think there is a difference between the federal level and provincial level in terms of where we might end up and how it might operate, because you are operating across jurisdictions. Sometimes joint agreements may even affect what you can release and what you can't.
I think it would be useful to really look closely at the U.S. system as well. We know under their system, on their stimulus program, they do release a lot more. When you go on their website, you can find out about jobs were created and projects, etc., which we're at least not able to do yet in Canada, and that seems to be a reasonable concept.
So I think it might be useful for the committee to travel, to look at least at their system. It's not that far for us to go, and I think it might be useful, rather than just having witnesses to look at the U.S. system in a somewhat comprehensive way. It's under a different system, I know, but you're dealing with agreements between the federal government and states, which would be...I wouldn't say exactly similar to, but something like our system.
Those are basically my comments. I agree that we have to move ahead fairly aggressively on this issue and find the witnesses and the programs that could give us some indication of how we should be moving forward.