I think this may be a point of order. It may not be. I'd appreciate your reflections on that when I'm done, Mr. Chair.
First of all, I just want to say that I am actually quite enjoying the opportunity to learn a fair bit about this. If you look at the motion that's before us, you see that one of the components is actually to send a number of aspects of the budget implementation act to other committees, exactly because we want to benefit from the subject matter expertise of those committees.
I think what my Conservative colleague here today is doing—perhaps intentionally, perhaps unintentionally—is making an excellent case for passing this motion, because it would enable us to send parts of the budget implementation act to other committees for study by folks who don't need to be taught this, because it's already part of their work.
He has clearly done a lot of excellent work on the committee for fisheries and oceans, and that's why it's so important that parts of the BIA land at those other committees, so that they can have these discussions by members of all parties, who have an intimate knowledge of the various industries.
I take him, actually, to be arguing for the motion and not against it at the moment. I thank him for the compelling demonstration of why passing this motion is so important. I would remind him, or perhaps inform him—because he is, after all, a substituting member of this committee—that the clock is ticking in terms of being able to get the benefit of that subject matter expertise, because the committee has not yet sent a letter to other committees asking them to study....
Last year we did that, but it came late, so that meant that some committees opted not to engage in that study. I think our own study of the bill was poorer for it. That was something we had hoped to remedy with a timely motion this year, and unfortunately this filibuster is getting in the way of that, even as the member makes an excellent case for why that mechanism is so important and should be incorporated as a regular part of the study of budget implementation acts going forward.
I just think it would be good to provide a little context not just for the committee, but also for the individual member as to what's going on in the context of his remarks. I am keen to ensure that it's not just for fisheries and oceans that the budget implementation act gets such a rigorous subject matter expert treatment, but that in fact it happens for all of the issues in the BIA.
I would encourage the member to try to be succinct in providing the things he thinks we need to know so that we can get to a vote and so that we can ensure that all parts of the BIA are as rigorously studied as some of the tangential elements of the BIA that he is exploring at the moment.