Thanks very much.
I think that with the legislation now in the House, we should be changing gears. It's passed. We should be looking to the future and having a conversation on what the future of this agreement is going to look like in terms of the makeup of the binational council, and Canada's role in the meritorious issues. There are various other committees. In fact, even going through other briefings, I'm learning that there are other things in which we, as a committee, can play a very important role concerning the next steps for this agreement, and the steps to come even in seven to nine years.
I was hoping that maybe we could have some ministry officials actually come before us and give us a bit of an outline of where they're headed, and give us some advice about what we should be looking at. I'm also looking to our researchers. Perhaps in the past there's been a binational council of some other sort. Maybe they could give us some advice about its makeup and what their role was, so that we can decide what we think and give some advice to the government on that. I don't really think we should be travelling right now to talk about the past and what we've discussed in the past.
I think that our House leader does not agree with our travelling. It's my understanding that House leaders do all have to agree in order for our committee to travel. If I am wrong, someone can correct me, but I'm not in favour of travelling. I think the legislation is here, and we need to move forward and talk about the next steps in every way we can. I've also spoken with the minister and he's happy to come before us again as well. So maybe we could schedule the civil service to come to the next meeting to give us next steps and some advice. Maybe we could schedule some time for the researchers to give us some advice, in a work plan, in an outline of what they see as next steps when they look at it. Then maybe we could also have the minister come in and we can ask him some questions about the information and advice that have been given to us by the researchers and the civil service.