I'm incredibly disappointed with how this has been done here, Madam Chair, by both you and the clerk. We had talked about studying the economic impacts of the strike at the port of Vancouver. That was going to be next week. A witness submission was never requested from us. Now, here we are on Thursday with no witnesses contacted to proceed with that study, which is completely out of the ordinary business as to how this committee operates.
We've operated this committee in a way where we've treated each other with respect and tried to work on things. To come in here today and be told that the minister has already been arranged to come on Tuesday for a study that is not before this committee, with a piece of legislation that is still being debated in the chamber, and will bump our study, which the entire committee agreed would be the next thing we study.... It's been bumped because not a single witness has been contacted. It's now Thursday at almost one o'clock.
There was a plan afoot here. The plan afoot was that this was going to happen and our study was not going to proceed. I find this to be something that I am exceptionally frustrated with. We do not have a bill before us. It is not the job of this committee to deal with incompetence in the government's ability to manage their legislative calendar in the chamber.
We had a committee plan. We agreed, everyone, to this plan. Now, all of a sudden, the plan has been thrown out of the window with no consultation with the committee. To somehow suggest this surprise announcement at committee business, when what we thought we were doing at committee business was to discuss this budget, I find to be a breach of how this committee has operated.
I'm incredibly disappointed. I'm disappointed in you, Madam Chair. We've had a good working relationship. I don't think this is the way we would treat each other normally.
I do not agree to doing a prestudy of that particular piece of legislation, because the committee had business we had already scheduled. If that legislation is before us, then of course it would bump a study, but to bump our study, which is an important study.... We all agreed it was important. We all agreed that it would go right after we finished Mr. Savard-Tremblay's biocides study. I think this is a big problem, and this is not how this should have been done.