Thank you, Madam Chair.
I understand that the order of reference has dictated that we look at this, and perhaps we failed in that responsibility. We'll let those who read this report be the judge of that.
However, my concern is that.... This is with all due respect to Mr. Brassard. I would say this to anybody.
I'm fairly new. I've only been around since 2015. In the three standing committees of Parliament that I've been on, we've never accepted a member's comments as testimony. If we do, then I have some questions for Mr. Brassard as a witness. Does he think that the costs would be justified? How much would it cost to do something like this? Does he think that's a good use of taxpayer dollars? I have questions that I would like to ask, if that's going to be allowed.
If this is a matter of addressing the fact that we missed a spot in the order of reference, I would be more open to the idea of a wording that said something like “other than one instance when it was brought up by a member of the committee, we didn't have any further discussions on it”, something to that effect.
As Mr. Turnbull said, there are a number of different comments or recommendations. I made a specific recommendation, as did many people throughout the meetings, that could just as easily be turned into a two-sentence paragraph like this one and added into the report.
I do share the concerns that have been expressed by other members on the committee, and I don't think we should be using this particular sentence to illustrate the fact that we have gone down the road of looking at this, as it was, at best, an ad hoc comment that made it into the report.