If I may, I was going to mention this in my remarks, Monsieur Laforest.
On that particular issue, you're quite right. Mr. Marshall was invited to attend and Mr. Marshall did agree to attend and he was of course scheduled to be here. I did receive a phone call late yesterday afternoon from Mr. Marshall indicating that he had been scheduled for surgery out of town and he was called and it's being done today. In fact, it was out of the country, actually. Given that, and that there will be a week of recuperation, I didn't think I had any choice. He did indicate his associate deputy minister would be here and that his associate would be fully briefed on the file.
The way I would like to handle it is I would like the meeting to proceed. At the end of the second meeting, if we feel, as a committee, collectively, that we need the attendance of Mr. Marshall, he is certainly willing to come before the committee. That is something we could probably better deliberate upon at the end of the second meeting.