Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to respond to some of the discussion that's been happening. There's this idea that somehow this is meant to delay. I don't understand where that one comes from. I don't understand how anyone would really credibly argue that there's going to be a huge delay based on this. We hear this idea of outrage. Well, I don't know who is outraged, because I'm certainly not, and I'm the person moving the motion. Although I'm kind of starting to get there, because these accusations are a bit odd that we're somehow delaying all of these things.
This is the party over there that talks about wanting to do everything based on evidence and all the information. Well, that's what all this is about, simply to make sure that we have all of the information and evidence that's available to us to make decisions about what recommendations we might make as a committee, knowing that these consultations are taking place and are under way.
I had a look just now, and those online consultations close on February 9, so when I think about that, and we talk about this idea of delaying, well, obviously, the minister isn't going to be moving forward with anything she is going to do before February 9. I'm sure she wouldn't do that without having all the information and the feedback from Canadians. It's Thursday today, and some members have suggested that maybe we could have completed a report today. I don't know, it may be possible. I will say from my perspective that I'm certainly prepared to deal with the report as written, to have a look at it, knowing that we haven't had it for a great deal of time—a couple of days I guess it is.
In terms of making recommendations, some members may be more prepared on that than others, but I think we can certainly get started on that, but personally, I think, why wouldn't we want to have all the information that's available? The consultations close on February 9, so if we were able to get a good start on the report today, we'd get the briefing on Tuesday, and we'd finish, hopefully, at that point on Tuesday or thereabouts, assuming it could be done within the course of that meeting and that there aren't great arguments about what should be in the report. We're talking literally about going from today, if people were to believe that we could finish today, to Tuesday, and that's still prior to that February 9 end of the consultations.
It's not as if the minister is about to bring forward a bill, so if this is something the minister would like to have access to to help inform what she does, I don't see how this would prevent it from happening. It's not as if we're talking about six weeks to get some information on what was said in the consultations. As indicated by other members, I would assume that's probably quite readily available and probably in a spreadsheet or something like that. It could just be provided to the committee verbally, or however folks want to do it.
Why couldn't we just have that happen on Tuesday? We could still get started on going through the report today. It's not going to prevent that from happening. I fail to understand the logic. I don't get it, I just don't get why the government has such a problem with sharing the information with this committee, because the only conclusion I can draw is that's the problem here. They don't want to share the information, and why wouldn't they want to share the information? That makes me suspicious now. I wasn't before, but now I am. I can't imagine what the reason would be.
Again, there's this idea that somehow a delay is happening here. We're talking about Thursday to Tuesday to be able to get a little bit of briefing, and that's even assuming we could otherwise finish today. That's a maybe, an if, a possibility. It may not delay it at all, and if it did, it would be literally three business days, still prior to the conclusion of the minister's consultations, so, obviously, nothing would be moving forward before that.
I fail to understand this idea that it's an unreasonable delay or will prevent something from occurring prior to the 2019 election. We're talking three business days, Mr. Chair, and I just don't understand why there would be such difficulty in getting some information to the committee, which would help it to make its decision, from a party that claims that it's important to have all of the information and evidence before making decisions.