Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First of all, I want to address a couple of the issues that have been brought up by my colleagues. The first one was by Mr. Shipley, and that was his suggestion that a friendly amendment be made to my motion indicating that Thursday, April 26, could be the first day of witnesses. I think it was actually Mr. Allen who had originally suggested that, because at least that way we've got a date to work with.
I'd just like to say that I would be willing to accept that friendly amendment to my motion, should the committee decide to go that route.
I'd also just like to say, for Mr. Byrne's satisfaction.... And I certainly hope Mr. Byrne would reconsider what he said earlier about not voting for my motion; I certainly would like it to be unanimous, and would be delighted if he could come on board. I would like to assure him that the witnesses the government would certainly be happy to bring forward to support would be the Auditor General, of course, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, deputy ministers, and whoever the deputy ministers would like to bring along; it's their decision.
Having said that, I certainly hope that Mr. Byrne would reconsider my motion. Let's move ahead in the spirit of cooperation the public accounts committee has been used to in the past, in previous Parliaments.
We have made a lot of progress and we have done a lot of good work in this committee, as Mr. Kramp and Mr. Christopherson, who are the deans of this committee, can attest. I've been on this committee I think longer than most. So I certainly hope we can move forward in the spirit of cooperation to get this done properly. It certainly would be nice to have a unanimous vote on my motion. I may be too optimistic in that regard, but it certainly would be nice. The government would like to move on, so that we can get going, as I stated earlier.
Thank you.