I would love to speak again. Thank you.
First of all, with respect to our deadline for estimates, I think we need to review that for a moment. There is really no obligation for us, other than the agenda of you, Mr. Chair, or the Conservative government, to necessarily push this through at the present time. As I understand it, we have until November before the main estimates are deemed to have been approved, unless we say otherwise. So there is no deadline that it has to be this June.
It's quite separate and apart from the budget and Bill C-13, for which there are certain deadlines you are interested in, as we've heard on numerous occasions. But with the estimates, we have the opportunity to actually do a thorough review on clause 10 before approving it. If we can't do it all this spring, we can always come back to it in the fall. You may not like that schedule, but there is nothing that requires us to pass the estimates right now.
I want to say two more things. One, we had some very specific suggestions from a couple of presenters about how we could put some guarantees in place that would actually make it possible for some protections against the possible negative implications that some of us foresee around opening up this competition.
Second, Mr. Chair, you'll have to agree with me when I say that I think we've only heard one side of the story. I know time was of the essence when this was set up. We may not have had everybody at the table that we should have. But I did make a suggestion that Michael Shapcott, who is well known in the field of housing, appear. He couldn't meet the timetable. However, he did send a brief that he asked to be circulated to the whole committee. I don't believe that has happened yet. I think in fact that we owe it--