Mr. Chairman, there are two things I want to say.
One, I would hope that as a matter of style and practice, the steering committee would be able to work hard on the agenda and give us a sense of direction. There'll be some trade-offs, and we all have our special interests and subjects. I mean, we could spend a lot of time debating motions that come before us, but we have to say, okay, how do we want to organize our schedule? What are the issues we want to deal with? How do we want to go forward? I would hope that as a matter of just working style, we'd be able to do that.
We made a decision last time that we'd do this broad study, that we'd begin to pull together the people we want to look at. There are a couple of issues that I've mentioned, and Mr. Obhrai has moved a motion on them--Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, areas of particular crisis where we need to be able to respond and to have, on an ongoing basis, sessions on.
I would just prefer that we do that. We have to understand that if we say we're going to consider this, then we're going to consider that, and then, by the way, we're going to consider this in addition, that kind of unfocuses us, that's all. I think we have to try to stay focused. Otherwise we can spend time debating motions.
As I've suggested to people, I'm happy if we can have a day where we talk about Sir Lanka, get a couple of witnesses in who can give us some information, and have an engaged discussion on that. That's worthwhile, and we can move on that basis.
I'm not quite sure, for example--speaking about both of Mr. Dewar's motions--when we would do this. Would it take time away from other stuff? How would we integrate it into the rest of what we're doing?
I really think these are the things that need to be traded off in the steering committee much more. In my view, that's what the steering committee should be doing.