Again with apologies to our guests, because we have some important things to hear from you, yet I'm sure folks from the Parliamentary Budget Office also appreciate what we're trying to do here, which is to understand complex legislation.
To Andrew's point about compromise and time, I'm a bit confused only in the sense that I thought Scott's amendment was quite reasonable. It doesn't extend, it doesn't cause any harm to the Conservative government's agenda or timing of the pacing of votes. It simply allows the complex sections, as my friend Mr. Caron has said, to be studied by groups, to actually hear witnesses. As the Conservatives will find, when we prepare our witness list, if you have 30 individual sections but only one or two panels, obviously there are whole elements that we will not hear about. I don't argue this solely for the purpose of the opposition, Mr. Chair, but committee members on both sides will be looking at legislation, the impact of which we will not understand simply because we don't have the time as is outlined.
I appreciate that FATCA is going to get some attention. I would imagine that everybody will be interested in that attention because it's a major tax treaty with the United States, our major trading partner. One might argue it could be a stand-alone bill, but the fact of the matter remains—and I'll stop at this, Mr. Chair—that this entire process is of the Conservatives' own creation. To get at all frustrated or unwilling to do the best job possible is not understandable simply because it was choices that were made when designing a bill of this size. Those choices have consequences. We're trying to remedy those consequences as best we can so that we can understand the legislation that's in front of us. So if veterans affairs should see it, then veterans affairs should see it.
We will be supporting the amendment from Mr. Brison. I am a little surprised that the Conservatives will not be joining us on that.