Thanks, Chair.
It's a good debate, a good discussion.
Mrs. Crombie continues to make good points, which is what I would say to my friend Mr. Saxton and others. I have to say that of the options put in front of us, I like the one about the paragraph the best. Even though I was open to the idea, I thought the comments about the historical snapshot are very well taken. Those are good, strong points.
The only thing that's unique about this, really, is not so much the length of time. I thought about it after I made the comments. That Place Victoria thing practically became a department unto itself in terms of our work on it forever. So it is not really the time that's the issue per se; it's actually the fact that the committee is dealing with something where the majority weren't even here to hear it in the first place. To me, that's what provides some room to do something by exception— hopefully without prejudice—without setting us up for future problems.
Again, I come back to Mrs. Crombie's points. I think she is making excellent points, and I don't think they're partisan. I think if you stand back and look at those arguments, they serve the committee well in terms of the work we're doing.
So I have to say that so far I'm leaning back to the chair's original suggestion to have a good healthy paragraph acknowledging that some time has gone by, and making the point that the majority haven't heard this and therefore that we're acknowledging—or whatever way we want to word it.... I like that suggestion the most. It allows us to provide something, but it doesn't take us away from our usual way of doing things and we haven't set a precedent that we can't always keep in proper context.