Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm wondering if we could come to an agreement on sawing it off by saying “two weeks”. We're talking about when the committee would start clause-by-clause after the bill comes to the committee.
We just went through a budget bill where we crammed in a lot of witnesses and started clause-by-clause in less than two weeks. That was a 650-page bill. We're talking about a single issue.
We could have a number of meetings. I think the motion calls for at least four. That should be a lot of meetings to get the basic points out. We can always have more if the committee decides that.
I think that giving us two weeks to begin clause-by-clause from when the bill comes to committee allows for at least a full four meetings, because if we start on Tuesday.... I'm happy to agree to Tuesday.
I will point out again that we continue to come to agreement on the agenda of this committee, and the ink is barely dry on that agreement when we have motions to change that. I'm finding that a bit frustrating, but I'm happy to do that. I would point out that the capital gains tax was announced in the budget on April 16. We've had about two months that we've known this is coming.
Given all that, I'm happy to work with my Conservative colleagues. I agree that it's an important issue. We have different perspectives on it, but I think that airing those different perspectives and doing a dive into this issue is important.
However, let's not hold up an agreement to pass this motion, to get started on Tuesday—examining capital gains and having four meetings, at least, on this—over an issue of when we start clause-by-clause. I think that saying that we will not start it for two weeks after the bill comes should satisfy everybody's concerns. Obviously, the government will want to move this bill on and needs some comfort that it will, and I think this is a reasonable compromise. I would just hope that we can start clause-by-clause two weeks after the bill comes to the committee, and then we can pass this motion.