Mr. Chairman, I'll try and explain to you why I am going to support Mr. Bélanger's motion.
Perhaps it's even more serious. The minister may have a reason for not tabling his report or his comments. Perhaps the act needs to be amended. Perhaps he thought he could do what he is doing by way of regulation. He didn't need to come and see us and ask for a motion like Mr. Fast's.
If that is the case, imagine the time the remailers wasted believing the government. If a legislative amendment is needed and the minister realized this and we are not aware of it because he did not submit his report, we will have to start all over again. When you're dealing with legislation, you have to hear from witnesses.
I don't know what the minister was thinking and if he came to the conclusion that a legislative amendment was necessary following the Appeal Court's decision. Regardless, I have trouble with the fact that we have to start the work all over again and that we've wasted over a year because people did not want to hear from witnesses. I'm less and less inclined to support the government, especially in delaying the real discussions, because in any event, we'll have to start them from scratch.
Mr. Bélanger's motion today is extremely important. We should wait until we get the minister's report. He has probably done his analysis. He should table this before the committee as quickly as possible. And if an amendment to the act is required, then he needs to introduce a bill. Sometimes ministers introduce draft bills for discussion purposes. If he wants there to be a discussion of this nature, then he should table a draft bill and we'll discuss it.
If that is the solution or the recommendation that he was ready to make but does not want to make because he feels trapped because he should have made it directly to the remailers— I understand the remailers. They are in a tough spot. They have jobs, and the recent decision went against them. If the ultimate solution is to amend the act, Mr. Fast's recommendation won't achieve anything. The act needs to be amended, a bill needs to be introduced, and it needs to be debated.
Legislation cannot be enacted without hearing from Canada Post's remailers. That is unthinkable. If that is the direction that the government wants to take, then they should tell us. It's quite unrealistic to think that Canada Post's exclusive privilege, which is statutory, would be bypassed and that every party would agree to have the bill fast-tracked. Just by listening to us, you can tell that we won't be giving the go-ahead to any fast track.
I'd like my colleagues to think carefully about this. Mr. Bélanger's motion is quite useful. The Conservatives should go back and see the minister and tell him that Mr. Bélanger may have been right. His report must surely be ready. He promised we'd have it, and there were speeches made about it. The parliamentary secretary knows what I'm referring to. The minister must have a reason for not submitting the report. Perhaps the findings aren't palpable in the sense that the act requires amendment. If that's the case then he should introduce draft legislation or table a report.
We're prepared to help him. I'm the one who moved the initial motion to have them appear. I'm keen to discuss this on the proviso that I have enough time to ask all the questions that need to be asked, which is something you didn't give me the opportunity to do. That's why I keep coming back to my original point. I asked you for some time. You called on me to follow the rules set by the committee. So that is what I did, and that is why I still have questions to ask before such an important change is made, because it may have an impact on rural mail. I'm a member for a rural riding. There are many rural ridings across Quebec. We want to ensure that any government decision doesn't jeopardize rural mail services. There are questions that need to be asked, and we'll see what happens after that.
If, in the recommendation or the document that the minister was supposed to produce, the only solution is to amend the act, imagine the time we wasted trying to move a motion to influence the government. All the government will do is table another bill. And if that happens, we won't have had time to hear from witnesses. We'll have to call all these witnesses back, and we'll have wasted time.
I hope the Conservatives are aware of this. I don't want to attribute blame, but you wasted the Canadian Pacific witnesses' time today. I hope that you didn't waste too much of the remailers' time. If the solution is to amend the act, we should wait for the minister's recommendations. And that's why I'm going to support Mr. Bélanger's motion.