Well, I'm talking about the time period we've had. Here we're looking at a report, Mr. Chair. This was started by the former government back in 2005. We had an expert review panel look at the entire telecommunications industry. It took them ten months to review the whole industry and they came up with 127 recommendations.
This has been available to everyone since March of this year, which is seven months ago, and we didn't hear a thing from this committee until last week that we haven't heard from enough witnesses. They spent ten months talking to witnesses--that was their job--and it wasn't something they took lightly. In ten months they pretty much talked to everybody in the industry. What they wanted to do was come up with recommendations for the government, and this was something the Liberals started. What we're doing with this is...we simply want to put forward what the former government started with this policy direction.
Since this entire process started.... We had the opportunity to start this back when we started our committee. We actually recommended that we start with telecom. At that time we decided instead to work with the manufacturing sector. That's a very good study to do, and I think everybody's encouraged and we'd like to get this completed in a timely manner, by December, so we can be relevant before the next budget.
Until last week we didn't hear anything from this committee, and we haven't had a report. How many recommendations have any of the members here actually made to the CRTC? We've had since June 13 to make recommendations. Why is it now so important that we have to delay this even further than it has been delayed?
I don't think anybody on this committee has put any recommendations toward the CRTC. I don't think any senators have put any forward.
We've received input from the different companies, consumers' groups, and individuals, and if anybody here wants to look at what's out there, they can go to the website, which is strategis.gc.ca, and see what has been put there.
In the committee last week we heard from all the relevant witnesses ourselves. We've had a snapshot of what's been going on, and there's no need to delay this any further. We have a policy direction that was given by the expert panel. The policy direction follows the recommendation of the telecom panel review report, and it was selected by and empowered by the previous government. What we've done...this government has taken the recommendations objectively and moved forward with a major recommendation of a proposed policy directive.
I pose as a question, would the Liberal members be opposing this now if it had been delivered last year? I really don't understand the objections of the opposition and to delay this even further. We've had since April, we've had since June to put up the recommendations, and up until last week nothing has been put forward by the opposition. Now they want to delay it for another four or five months before we start moving this forward.
If you look into--