I may be able to achieve that goal very quickly, Mr. Chair, in some people's eyes.
I would like to make some points, some of which have already been made.
I'm not as familiar with the overall forestry file as some of my colleagues here, such as Mr. Boshcoff, Mr. Harris, Madam Bell, members of the Bloc, and Mr. Allen. My riding, while very close to an area where forestry is important, is not particularly a forestry riding. It is 70% urban and has a lot of farm and light manufacturing and agriculture. I'm not quite as familiar with all the details of the issue, but I do understand a little of how we do this politically and so forth.
I would think if we were going to make a motion or recommendation from this committee, it would be better if we did it after we had gone through serious study. If we now make the motion and put in all these details, it has about all the impact of—be it the broader world or the powers that be—just general politicking and what committees do. It's the same as if each of our parties basically restated our political viewpoints in a press release. It can go to the House. We can do a debate on the day, but the journalists would go, hum, hum, yawn, yawn. The Liberals, Bloc, NDP, and Conservatives would state their opinion.
If we do a semi-substantive study with six, seven, or whatever number of sessions we agreed to, then we could come together with some specific ideas and things that we can work on together. Again, things tend to be more widely accepted by the broader community, and they're more willing to go forward if you have people buying in with the assumption that there's no hidden agenda. When it just becomes party line votes or something like that, there's always the assumption of hidden agenda. We know that politically: we send out our press releases, you send out yours, and it goes back and forth.
If we are going to argue for an augmented aid package in which we decide that what the government announced is going to be in the budget, we should do this after we've gone through some very thorough and substantive study that we could all stand behind. A motion like this is not going to encourage any Conservative member of Parliament to go to his minister and say, let's change this; let's make this tweak; let's do this modification. The same is true for the opposition. It's not going to say, let's do these things here and get this done.
If we don't have an election this spring, our forestry report could go up the minister line. The crisis is very likely to continue, and I think, particularly for people who have forestry in their riding, you'd like to be able to go back to your riding and say, we did this; we made this adjustment, and it actually helped. Even if you're not a government member, if you could say you made some contribution; when you got back home you could claim some credit for having done something positive. You're the local member. You're the incumbent. You have gotten something done. By the way, that's actually our job--to get things done for our constituents.
We can do it in opposition; we can do it in government, but we need to do it. To have this type of credibility, for us to be able to argue it up the line to the people who have more direct control over public finances, we need to have more unified support on the committee. We need to have systematic and laid-out ideas and specifics that we can do.
The government is going to continue to bring forward the community development trust. It is going forward in the government's budget. Instead of just doing something else, we might want to come back after we've gone through our report and say, let's put together something to augment this--and maybe not always just with cash. There may be different ways, such as taxes, labour force mobility, training, etc., that we could do to be supportive with the full knowledge that they would not cause problems with our trade with the U.S. I think that is actually an idea that would get something accomplished.
Let's face it, this motion today is going to be forgotten as soon as it's on the wires, depending on what else is out there competing for the news. It may get no publicity whatsoever. It may go to the House, but there are a million motions we can do in the House if we need to do stuff, on both sides of aisle.
That's where I stand. That's my suggestion. I would put it out there to all committee members to take a really serious thought and look at that, because if we want to get something accomplished we need to work together.