Mr. Chairman, if the question was, should the minister come here with prescribed questions and/or answers to some of the concerns of the committee, I think he has now a range or a consensus of views as to what we might want to talk about. But I think it's just as important for a minister to be able to outline the government's agenda with regard to some of these particular issues. I think manufacturing, obviously, research and development, and competitiveness and productivity are very important. I think a good minister would want to do that anyway. I don't think we should hamstring him.
The other thing that is not mentioned, but I know it probably falls within the finance committee, is directly related very much to our ability to be able to compete or to support small business, and especially enterprise with regard to access to capital. Having been around this place for going on 18 years, I know that sometimes other committees do some additional work. But because there is a review of the Bank Act that has to be done by the government, I think by the end of this year—and I know the finance committee will probably undertake it or be the lead on it—the fact is that what happens in the banking, insurance, and securities areas is very much related to how well our industries maintain competitiveness and productivity.
So I would hope that at the end of the day there may be an opportunity for us to get into it as an industry committee. I'm suggesting that we ought to lay out a plan for the next five weeks. We ought to lay out a plan between September and the end of December, and again into the new year, and essentially work to those things. I know there are a lot of things we can do, but I think we ought to be focused in terms of when we want to do some of these particular things. I think we might have a better idea of priorizing all of that list now on important issues that in fact impact us.
I would suggest that the manufacturing sector obviously will be a great challenge to our country, as well as research and development, or even gasoline or energy prices, and the impact that those might have on our economy.