Gentlemen, we're going to have to return to our agenda here. We have a couple of items to discuss. There were two items distributed while we were at break. One is a notice of motion from Mr. Julian, which I will have him speak to in just a moment. The other one is the draft committee schedule.
I'm thinking that because of the time here, we may not get through this draft committee schedule, but I want to make a couple comments before we proceed.
One is that, as we saw today, a discussion of Canada-U.S. relations is such an enormous topic that I think it's going to be imperative that we define the focus of this discussion. Otherwise we'll be all over the map. I don't wish to restrict committee members in any question they want to ask at any time, but in terms of our specific study this time around, I think there was some suggestion at the previous meeting when we discussed agendas that we would focus on perhaps four areas of Canada-U.S. relations. I thought that before we proceeded further with Canada-U.S. relations, we might want to define that and come to an agreement that we are going to limit our discussion to perhaps four areas.
I'll just run by the areas according to my recollection. And when we get into discussion of the draft committee schedule, I will ask for some consensus on that.
Those areas were the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative; country of origin labelling; northern border and security; and, although somewhat tangential to the WHTI, the 2010 Olympics and related matters vis-à-vis the United States.
It was my thought that there had been some consensus that we were going to pursue those four areas in our discussion of Canadian-U.S. relations, and I think to go beyond that would just widen the scope to a point where we don't really get anything done.
I'm not asking for a decision right now. I just want the committee to consider that and also to consider this draft committee schedule. When you do so, may I again suggest to the committee that it was my suggestion, and obviously that of the analyst, to put together this draft committee schedule based upon a consensus of the views of the past meetings. Also, the points that I have just raised with you--those four areas of consideration for the agreement--were also based on that consensus. If there is any dramatic difference from that, I would welcome discussion of it, but we could go a long way to try to define the agenda and not get any business done. I would hope that we could stick to some consensus.
In any event, those are merely to try to save time later for the committee. We will turn to the draft committee agenda, and specifically the boundaries of our Canada-U.S. trade relations discussion, following discussion of Mr. Julian's motion.
Did you want to say something before that, Mr. Julian?