Mr. Chairman, I think it is important that we clarify what is happening here.
There is a suggestion on the part of the Liberals that unless this committee hears some witnesses for a meeting or two, the perspectives of investors and trust companies are not going to be heard. That, of course, is utter nonsense. The trust companies were in Ottawa the day after the announcement. Trust companies have been meeting not only with members of Parliament—all of us have met more than once with representatives of the trust industry—but the minister has met with these individuals, and the department has had ongoing discussions with these individuals. In addition to that, there is the input process on the bill, which is posted on the website and is going through the normal process.
So there has been plenty of input--huge input, commentary, discussion, debate, perspectives--put forward on this issue directly to the minister and his department. It does not need this committee to make that happen.
The committee has a role. Generally speaking, in the ordinary course of business the role is to examine the bill after second reading. Somehow there's a suggestion that the normal course of business isn't good enough in the case of this bill, that we have to study it before we even have a bill. But how could that be true? If it's not good enough for this bill, why is it good enough on every single other bill that's ever come before Parliament? That is when the committee looks at the legislation, hears witnesses, and makes recommendations back to the House, including amendments that come back before the House. The committee has every opportunity to do this. So the suggestion that somehow it has to be done now or there's going to be panic in the streets is really quite ridiculous.
With respect to the investors, Mr. Chairman, either the investors continue to hold trust units, in which case the value of those trust units has recovered to within 10% of what they were before the announcement—this is well known by members on the Liberal side—or they have sold their trust units, in which case anything that is done by legislation is not going to change the position.
Mr. Chairman, I think there are some things we may want to discuss--and are discussing, quite frankly--with the minister, with the department, and with a number of groups about mitigation, as my friend Pierre Paquette says, but fundamentally what we're concerned about is the Liberals continuing to bring uncertainty to this situation.
I appreciate my friend from the Bloc making it clear that at the end of the day he, as well as the majority of Parliament, will be supporting the bill and the measures that are put forward and that like all of us he does want to discuss what can be done to be responsive to investors and trust concerns. But to somehow suggest that this has to be done tomorrow or something is not going to be done properly I think is really misleading. I think it's important that we put that forward.