Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I certainly appreciate that the budget implementation act is a major legislative cornerstone of the government's agenda and that it needs to be studied.
My hope is that if we do a prestudy we first of all get the word out as soon as possible that we are going to be doing this, so that people who are interested, groups that have issues.... I've heard a number of concerns back in my riding; however, I think we need to let people know we're going to do this.
Also, I think we want to also make sure that we don't end up in a pre-budget consultation state where we have so many stakeholders and such limited time that we don't get to ask as many questions. There is so much to study in this bill.
My suggestion, though, would be—and I'm glad to hear you confirm this or at least add it to your thinking—that the minister probably wouldn't want to come until after second reading. The reason is that I think it's better for us to have enough testimony on it that when we ask questions of the minister, having seen the facts and some of the responses, we can be prepared.
I would almost suggest that we save the finance officials, even the Minister of Finance, for sometime closer to the end, because I think there are a number of concerns.
I have just one question to you, Mr. Chair. Do you foresee that this bill is going to be studied in sections by different committees, or are we going to be doing the whole process here? Maybe you could update the committee on that end of it. I'd appreciate any thoughts you might have.