I see us doing exactly what we were doing the last time. We're getting onto the same railcar, where we're already beginning to start polarizing.
If we're going to have a report, it would seem to me that we may end up with a minority report as well, as you've just said, Mr. Chair. However, I like to believe that if we're going to consider all the evidence we heard, and if we're going to do that in as objective a manner as possible, then we will go with where that evidence leads us in order to come up with recommendations based on objective evidence and what we think of the evidence we heard.
If we start off with a conspiracy theory, if we believe there is some sort of predisposition to move in a certain direction purely because people are going to write a report that's going to go in that direction without referencing the evidence, then we're never going to get anywhere. We're going to be exactly where we were when we left off. We're just going to be facing off on each other.
There has to be some kind of decision that we are going to have a report, and that we're going to come up with a report by December 8. If that report doesn't seem to fit everyone's decisions and recommendations, then there will have to be a minority report. But if we start getting hung up on this before we even start, we won't even have a report.
We should go for a report. If there's going to be a minority report, there will be one. The references of everything we heard—all witnesses—will have to come into play, and based on all of those references, on all of the witnesses that we heard, obviously we will form opinions and recommendations. Those may differ or they may agree in some instances.
Libby's right. There are going to be things on which we're all going to agree. There are going to have to be a few recommendations that we all think are fairly straightforward and are going to agree on, and then there are going to be the ones that we don't agree on.
We've had committees before on which this has happened. I think all three of us—Réal, Libby, and I—were on one, on the report on the non-medical use of drugs. We ended up actually not having a consensus, but we ended up agreeing on about two-thirds of the recommendations.
So I think we should head into this by saying that if we all heard the same information, and if we're all going to reference it and are going to come up with recommendations, we should try to come up with the things we can agree on. Where we disagree, we will then have a minority report. But let's just get on with it.