Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I have a couple of quick things. I really want to hear from the Governor of the Bank of Canada. I'm happy to have that happen in the next three weeks or so. I agree that he is a key witness for that study, and I think that hearing from him earlier in the study would be better since some of what we're going to hear from him will help inform some of the questions we may want to ask of other witnesses when they come to appear, including what their comments are on some of the things we might hear from the Governor of the Bank of Canada.
I think this motion probably isn't the place for re-extending that invitation, because this is about Bill C-8. It's not obvious to me that there is anything in the bill that we would solicit the opinion of the Governor of the Bank of Canada on, so I think making sure that we keep those things separate and that we have the testimony of the governor for the study without requiring any additional procedural work by the committee, in order to make sure we can have that testimony serve in the context of the study for which it is meant, would be a good thing.
I want to come back to a comment that was made either by the clerk or perhaps by you, Mr. Chair, about the Governor of the Bank of Canada's response to the initial invitation, because you indicated that the presence or absence of his officials might have played a role in his decision as to whether he was available.
To me there's a bit of a question here for the committee. If the governor appearing without any officials at all is going to be a hindrance to scheduling, I'm happy to have the governor appear with his officials, if that helps facilitate getting him before the committee earlier. For me there's not much that hangs on whether he comes all by himself or whether he brings the people he feels are most appropriate to support him in providing timely answers to the committee.
If that is a hang-up, I would certainly offer that the clerk could contact him again and offer him to come with his officials. That's my personal point of view. If we have consensus on the committee that we'd rather expedite the appearance of the governor and that he can bring whichever officials he likes, then that's something we can go forward with. If not, and his appearing alone continues to be a barrier to scheduling, then perhaps the committee could consider a motion or something that would allow us to decide, on a majority basis, whether or not the governor could appear with his officials.