I want to share with everyone what we've experienced over the past four years. Mr. Arseneault was talking earlier about the unanimity in all the reports. I think that all our reports over the past four years have been unanimous.
The committee has worked in a way that shows great respect for all parliamentarians here. As a result, mutual trust has been built. We must never lose sight of our objective, which is to advance the rights of francophones in minority communities and anglophones in Quebec. That's the ultimate goal.
In the past four years, there has been little or no partisanship in the committee. Of course, this doesn't mean that there hasn't been some partisanship.
We also noticed that we were wasting a great deal of time. When we want to invite witnesses, it takes ages to ensure that they'll appear. When we postpone these types of motions, inevitably the time frame is longer.
It's already the end of February, and we'll finish at the end of June. There will be a three or four week break before then. Quite frankly, if we want to make any progress, we should make a decision today. We can walk and chew gum at the same time. We can get this resolution passed because it's quite open ended as a result of the last point added.
If we pass this resolution today, we could all do our jobs by starting to invite the witnesses from Statistics Canada. We can't have them join us next Tuesday, of course. This doesn't in any way prevent Mr. Angus or Mr. Beaulieu from making additional points during the witnesses' presentations and from asking them questions.
However, we'll try to keep that perspective, since we're inviting them to appear for this purpose. In any case, given the duration of the meetings with them and the presence of the witnesses, we truly don't have time to indulge ourselves for very long. We have enough material to cover the duration of the presentations.
I just want to bring you up to date on what we've experienced over the past four years. We could pass this resolution today so that the work can move forward. On Tuesday, based on the information from our analyst, we could begin to discuss the issue, develop our thoughts on the matter and prepare our questions for potential witnesses.
Otherwise, all this will be postponed until mid-March or sometime around then. We're already way behind in the process, if you ask me.