I have Mr. Baldinelli, Mr. Cannings, Mr. Tremblay and Mr. Martel.
I'd like the opportunity to respond so I don't necessarily want to wait until the other speakers have spoken.
Is it okay with everybody if I respond to the suggestions so that there's a better understanding of where we're going with this?
We all know that Bill C-57 takes precedence, as Mr. Seeback said, over everything else. It was expected. Bill C-57 had to come. We have to deal with it because it's legislation, and then immediately following the four meetings that were decided on for Bill C-57, we go on to the port study, which is scheduled at the moment for the end of this month.
There's been a delay in the House with getting the Canada-Ukraine free trade agreement into this committee due to concurrence motions being tabled. We all know what's going on. It's been deliberately to delay the Canada-Ukraine free trade agreement from moving on.
The clerk has to have a schedule and we expected the legislation to be here, which is why the schedule is the way it is. We did the biocides and, normally, if it were not for the concurrence motions being moved in the House, the legislation would be here. It was scheduled for Monday, and we had asked the minister as well to be here for the beginning of that study, which is normal, and the schedule worked as well.
It's efficient use of our time as a committee. The concurrence motions in the House are delaying its getting here, because it was scheduled to be debated yesterday and Friday. We have the four meetings, and we immediately go on to the Vancouver port strike that we talked about. That was the plan. That is the schedule that is before us at the moment.
Since Bill C-57 is not here yet, but it will be at some point, the idea was to do a prestudy and then apply that information so that we can continue with the schedule that's before us. There was no intention to be devious about anything. The legislation takes precedence. It is the holdup in the House that's preventing it from being here, so that's all I'm going to say about that.
Mr. Baldinelli, you have the floor.