Thank you very much, Chair.
Getting back to what I was saying, I have used, multiple times over the last nine years as a member of Parliament, the reports we have produced within committee. I share them with my constituents when they ask questions. All of those resources are paid for by the taxpayers. That's always an item brought up by my Conservative friends. We need to be diligent about how we spend taxpayer money.
We just spent literally dozens of hours studying this. We brought people in from a wide array of fields, as I said, including ministers and department officials. Now we're basically saying, “No, we don't want to report on what we just learned.” I think Canadians need to ask why we don't want to do that. Were there perhaps things they didn't like that were said, because they went against certain arguments put forward, or against misconceptions that were held by certain members?
In this particular case, my honourable colleague Mr. Simard is right. We can debate this at a later date. However, what we have in front of us now is a plethora of witness testimony we can use to put together a very comprehensive report of a very important study—one that, as a member of Parliament, I would very much like to share with constituents who have questions about this project. As chair of another committee, I would very much like us to see this come to fruition and provide something to the government with recommendations, ideas, comments, etc., then get a response from the government back. If we want to have a debate in the House after the fact, we can use the data and information we have all sifted through and adopted as a report.
I feel we should move forward that way. I see disagreement across the way. Mr. Angus is right. Part of our job is to agree when we are in agreement, and to disagree when we're not in agreement. However, my position is this: Let's move forward. Let's put together this incredible plethora of information in a report we can share with constituents, regardless of which riding we represent. Then, if we see fit and so choose, we can move forward to debate it in the House of Commons.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.