First of all, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I thank the committee for agreeing to that with unanimous consent, because I think there are some pre-budget issues that are very top of mind right now. We could get to work fairly rapidly and fairly rigorously on what is currently happening within the walls of the House of Commons, namely the fact that it's been kind of laid out that this committee would have conducted pre-budget consultations across the country as its regular mandate as a committee. That did not happen and that causes some concern. That's not to diminish the consultations that all of us have done in our own world, our own areas of the country, but I think this committee has a role and a responsibility to commence very actively along the lines of providing the voice for many organizations I've spoken with who perhaps haven't had the chance. I've yet to see exactly who has been part of the minister's tables across the country, but we had acknowledged that.
As a past committee chair—and I'm not trying to be a usurper on this in any way, sir—I know that the one overriding rule of all committees is that we are the masters of our own destiny and that we can decide to do whatever we wish to do at any point in time, and we are not to be dictated to by any outward influence or source. I believe that's the direction the chair laid on the table for us at the start of his opening comments.
That said, I would propose a motion at this point that the Standing Committee on Finance invite the Honourable Bill Morneau, Minister of Finance, to appear as the first witness to commence the committee's 2016 pre-budget consultations, along with senior officials from the Department of Finance; and that the minister appear to inform committee members about the ministerial mandate letter.
I would place that before the committee as our first order of business. I know that having no idea of when we might have a budget means that we may be pressed for time. I think we should have an open discussion, if we decide to go forward with this, about the frequency with which we meet. Doing so could commence rapidly, depending on the number of witnesses proposed. As you know, in an exaggerated fashion it could entail meetings 24-7 if we desire to do that, to hear from as many people as possible.
This in no way, shape, or form is an attempt to push back the date that the finance minister has in mind for the budget. In fact, it's the opposite. It's an attempt to say to this committee that we would desire to immediately get on with hearing the important witnesses that this committee has traditionally heard in the past, and we would like to do it in a fashion that produces input from all the important sources around this country that have been missed because this committee was not constituted. We will do that forthwith, with as much frequency as we need to so that we can provide the minister with the information we receive from those stakeholders across the country, which would probably mean we'd need to act very quickly in order to get that input to the minister on the budget.