Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First and foremost, maybe I think it's worth reminding ourselves that the committee is not a tool of the minister. We do not report to the minister. We do not provide a report to the minister. Our role as a parliamentary committee is to report to Parliament, so to hear the language from the Liberal benches that we need to get our report to the minister, that we need to advise the minister.... That's not our role. We report to Parliament. First and foremost, we are a parliamentary committee.
The second point, to echo something Mr. Christopherson said, is that we don't take our marching orders from the minister either. At the same time, we know that the minister is operating on this parallel track. We know that there's been an online portal. We know there have been round tables that have been closed to the media.
We are in a position where there is information available. I strongly support Mr. Richards' motion, because I don't think there's such a thing as too much valuable information. Having the opportunity to have access to the information provided by Canadians through the online portal...I think all of us have seen the portal and know that there is a disclaimer that the information and the names can be shared as appropriate. There have been experts who have attended these round tables, and academics, those involved in the field. It's valuable information. Some of it may be duplicative of what we've already heard, and that's fine.
That information has been collated, I know, and put into a usable form for advice for the minister. I would be under the impression that it would take very little work and effort to have that advice and information forwarded to this committee. I don't think it needs to be a long, drawn-out process. We all know how bureaucratic functions work. We know that information is readily available in a usable format. As for who exactly presents it to this committee, I don't think it matters, as long as that information is provided to the committee.
I would support Mr. Richards' motion. I don't think it would draw out this process much at all. As Mr. Christopherson mentioned, we didn't get to the recommendation portion of this report yet. It sure would be nice if we could do that in the next hour and a half, but I don't think an important matter such as this will necessarily come to a conclusion within the next 90 minutes or so. I do think it's worthwhile to have the information provided to this committee.