Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First, I would like to comment on what you just said. You said that we had not necessarily put the right questions to the people who already came to testify before us.
My reply to that would be that things have become clearer since then. How could we at that time ask questions on things we were not aware of? We did not then know that the United States had asked for five million barrels per day. We did not know that there had been a meeting with the previous government.
We want to know whether the new government has developed a position. In fact, this would help us to prepare our report. It is absolutely crucial that we be made aware of the position of the government of the time and that we know how this was perceived and received.
In my opinion, we need to know more. On what basis was this production to be increased? I am sure that the people who are mentioned here knew this, but we did not. We would like to know this before we prepare our report, so as not to look like people who prepare a report without being aware of the main development agreement, or who report on things about which they were not well informed. Obviously, meeting with some of these people again—people to whom we could perhaps put questions that would be more relevant for our report—will allow us to prepare a more complete and less naive report.
We have to be apprised of the plans of the previous government, because it did have plans. They were not discussed. Now we see that the new government has also committed itself in this regard. So where are we on this issue?
Finally, we the members of the Bloc Québécois, of the Liberal Party and of the Conservative Party, and even more so the members of the New Democratic Party, were not aware of certain things. How could we prepare a report that was not naive if we did not have basic information on this matter?
In my opinion, the request is amply justified. We don't want to torment these witnesses; we simply want to be able to talk to them in order to find out more about this.