I listened to Mr. Allen that we need to serve the Canadian public. Absolutely we do. We should have been doing this a couple of weeks ago, when we had the opportunity. It was a choice at that time not to.
I find it interesting, in terms of moving ahead, that a colleague across the way from the Liberal Party, 65 minutes after the meeting has started...that it should be deemed now as a planning meeting when he had the opportunity of putting that motion forward.
As I said, this is about a committee to consider a study of chapter 2; there was no consideration at that time to even notify us that there would be a planning meeting. He chose not to let us know so that there would be some grandstanding, unfortunately, on the Liberal side, and maybe supported by the NDP, I'm not sure. We didn't sign the notice to have the meeting. So I'm not so sure that coming back two days ahead of a meeting has been in the best interest of the Canadian public in terms of spending for people to come.
So we need a way forward. Actually, I think we should get to the vote. The way forward is that we would take Mr. Saxton's motion that says we will start the study. We will have the planning meeting on the 24th. We will have witnesses on the 26th. That way, everyone has an opportunity to put their names forward. We then talk about the discussions, not dictated, quite honestly, by one person of this committee.
We take Mr. Allen's comments seriously that when we've been on this committee prior, we've worked well as a team. We're here to do the best for the country. We've done that by putting names forward. We each select out of it. Some we like, some we don't, but that's how it works so that we get both sides of the story. Then we talk about how they come forward so that actually as a committee we get the best value from those witnesses as they come forward—not dictated by one person at this time without the discussion or without the courtesy, quite honestly, of even letting us know that they wanted to have a planning meeting.
I suggest that we move forward on Mr. Saxton's motion. We have to deal with the amendments from my colleague across the way. We will deal with those. I suggest that we do and we get moving.