Thank you very much.
I think we are all just sorting through this. I apologize if my remarks aren't quite as cogent as they might like.
I think there is an issue that comes up with respect to the study in general. We have been setting the potential for a transitional trade agreement, what it might look like and what people would like to see in such an agreement.
The fact, though, that there is now an agreement signed—although we haven't seen it—means that we're at the end of the study of a potential trade agreement, and I think we could publish a final report on it, because what we don't know is just as important as what we do know.
We might report back to the House some of the things we don't know. Some of the open questions that have been raised are things that are important to consider. We could issue a report, wrap this up and then move on to the study of the actual agreement.
I'll be honest. I don't know that there's a lot of point in meeting with witnesses on the Canada-U.K. trade agreement until we have the text of the agreement, because we're going to be asking people to come to make presentations to committee, but nobody actually knows what's in the agreement.
We saw a little bit of that today, when we were pressing witnesses who don't know anything about what's in the agreement to give their opinion about something they don't know about. It's hard for me to imagine that we're going to get productive testimony, because everyone is going to want—and not wrongly—to defer until they know what is actually in the agreement before giving any real, meaty comment on what they think works and what they think doesn't.
Again, this isn't a considered position, given that the agreement was just announced on the weekend. We don't actually know when we're going to get it. If it takes four weeks to do the legal scrubbing and the translation....
Parliament isn't even supposed to be sitting in four weeks' time. I think that takes us to December 23 or thereabouts; I'm not exactly sure.
I don't know what the government is doing and I don't know how the committee is really supposed to respond within the context of a process that is completely unclear and in the context of studying a document we don't have access to.
I think what we could do, then, is wrap up what we've heard so far within the context of this study and report back on that: the things we know—not much—the things we don't know, which is even more, and then undertake the study that we would normally undertake anyway. There should be enabling legislation, and we'll call witnesses to hear about it.
How we get that done before December 31, I have no idea. I'd be interested to hear how the government thinks it could be accomplished, when they don't think they can even deliver the agreement to parliamentarians until at least two weeks from now.
From the point of view of what we do know as a committee, we could wrap up this potential future-oriented study and then begin again with witnesses once we have the text of the agreement.
I put that out for discussion.
I also hear what Ms. Gray is saying. We could just proceed with this study and roll it into a study of the legislation when it comes, but we may well want to hear from the very same witnesses again once we've seen the text of the agreement. I wonder about calling them now and then calling them two or three weeks from now. I ask whether it wouldn't be better just to wait until we actually know what the heck the government has committed the country to. Then we can ask for people's opinions on it.
Thank you.