Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Certainly you've set the stage for our discussion. Given all the different agencies that are part of our committee's responsibilities, I think that's extremely critical.
From my experience in other committees, it was very important to have the ministers present the information they had in order to get things rolling. They more or less set the stage so that we knew where they were going and what things they had done. In the case of a mandate letter, we knew how they interpreted it, because those are all public documents. I think that's really one of the key issues.
Perhaps later I will take an opportunity to place a motion to have Minister Bains come here as soon as possible. I don't know whether it would be best to do it now, because I do want to say a few other things before we get to that stage, but that's really, I think, one of the critical parts.
We also have two other ministers. We should have an opportunity for them to explain what is important, what they've seen, and what their goals are. The reality is that we, as members of the House of Commons, are not within their ministries. We need to know from them what it is that is important and where their goals are going to be.
That's the first part. I'll come back to it again in perhaps a more formal way in a moment.
Other studies and other things that I know are critical in rural areas are broadband connectivity and the ability of businesses to expand. We have an amazing operation that takes place in my riding, in Olds, Alberta. It has the highest connectivity in the country, and that's basically because there are some businesses that have done some amazing work. Every course at Olds College, an agricultural college in my region, is completely linked in in terms of computer systems analysis. Amazing things have taken place there. That is an area that I believe we could be taking a look at, and we could look as well at how we could commercialize some of this technology and move it into other areas.
Those are the areas that I'd like to see us study. In order to get the ball rolling, we could ask about the availability of the minister, and I would be prepared to put a motion forward if that is in order, Mr. Chair. The motion that I have—