Certainly, Mr. Chair. I apologize.
Let us take Bill C-11, for example, which is being considered in the transport committee. We have now had four weeks of hearings from witnesses across the country on that particular bill, and in fact we are looking at a period of six weeks to submit amendments.
In this case, the opposition was extremely cooperative. Eight days after receiving a clause-by-clause report, it submitted clause-by-clause amendments to the bill. That level of cooperation is something that wasn't seen either in this or the previous Parliament.
So I would hope that the government would cooperate back, given that we have made concessions, both in terms of the time required for amendments and also in extending the time today for the hearing.
Mr. Chair, I'd like to come to the most important thing, the actual witnesses themselves, and what they have said in requesting to be heard in front of this committee. Whether it's by teleconference, video conference, or in person, I think this is of much less important than the fact that they want to appear.
Russ Cameron of the Independent Lumber Remanufacturers Association stated the following. He urges you to convene committee meetings so that the parties affected by Bill C-24 may appear as witnesses and express their views on this pending legislation:
We realize that sessions were held earlier in this process as we appeared at them, but things have changed a great deal since that time. For example, we were originally assured that all our interest would be returned to us, but now Canada will take some of it too. We were originally told in writing that we would get all our money back if we elected not to sell to EDC at a discount, but now Canada is imposing a special charge and will take that money from us too. We were originally told that 95% support was required, but when it was not there, Canada changed that requirement. We were originally told that all litigation must be dropped, but when it was not dropped, GOC changed that requirement too.
We have yet to see the much changed final agreement that the GOC plans to force upon us, yet we are currently operating under it. We now have experience with what this agreement will do to our industry and we need the opportunity to relate this new knowledge to the Committee.
At the July 31 Trade Committee meetings, a motion by Mr. Julian was passed to take the Committee to the affected parties and hold meetings in BC, Quebec, and Ontario. This has not yet occurred
--and we ask you to follow through with this motion.
The Independent Lumber Remanufacturers Association represents 120 B.C. companies, employing over 4,000 Canadians. Our annual sales are $2.5 billion on four billion board feet.
So that's Russ Cameron from the Independent Lumber Remanufacturers Association writing to urge this committee to have hearings on Bill C-24 before we move to clause-by-clause consideration.
We have a letter from Frank Everett, and Bill Derbyshire, who's president of Local 1425--