Mr. Chair, with respect to my friend's suggestion, a subcommittee on agenda is essentially meant to be in place for forward-looking business, as the committee is seized with things and as members of Parliament are torn in various different directions with demands. We have the whole committee here, as opposed to a subcommittee. Agendas are fairly light. We're on Bill C-4 in terms of the legislative calendar, so why would we defer to a smaller group of this group to set the first agenda topic?
I'm suggesting we choose the first agenda topic, so that we can get witness names in by next week. I'm not saying you have to pull them out of your briefcase today. I'm saying next week, so that we can have some substantive hearings within a few weeks. I think Canadians expect that.
Some committees, in my experience, did not really use the subcommittee if the committee talked committee business on a regular basis. We have everyone here. This is our suggestion. In fact, we've put two items up for the group to have consensus on. I think we'd all agree that both subjects are issues that Canadians would like a committee to look into in some detail. Rather than defer this to a smaller group of this group, why don't we take a moment, come up with how many hearing days we think the topic would need, and then submit witnesses by next Wednesday?
I think it's a reasonable request, Mr. Chair.