The whole purpose, as we understood it when we discussed this previously, was that I think we all recognized that information at this committee must appear in both official languages. That's a guiding principle. When we had the discussion, I think we all agreed that producing this material in English and French would be an unreasonable financial burden. We agreed, in my understanding, that we would have this study to ensure we had the right mechanisms in place so as to avoid this problem entirely.
This motion is simply to address formally what we had agreed to do, which was to have the study on how we should be governing this going forward. As per your recommendation, we have the tri-council and everyone else coming to be part of the conversation about what is the best mechanism we might use to solve the problem that I think you were very rightly trying to solve with the original motion.
I don't think there's any dispute at all in respect of what we're trying to accomplish. I think we agree. The issue we all agreed to was that in order to produce these documents in both official languages, which is the right thing to do.... The unreasonable financial burden on the system is the reason that we went down the path that we did. I'm very comfortable with being able to defend that position. I think we all would be.
I think the purpose of the study that we are in right now gives all of us comfort, I think, in ensuring that what comes out of it is a good, quality recommendation on the basis of everything and every witness we've had, including the tri-council, rather than just basing it on one particular collection of data and then leaving it to us, 400 business days from now—whatever the makeup of this committee will be—to determine what should happen. I think that in order to get to what you want more effectively, more expeditiously and in the most thoughtful way possible, this study is supposed to accomplish that.