I second that motion, Mr. Chair, for the even more compelling reason that we now have a court judgment from yesterday that has been added to the mix and the discussion on this issue, since the original motion was moved and since the amendment was moved.
This committee has to take into consideration that court document, which talks very specifically about the impact in rural areas, and talks about the relatively low cost of providing universal postal services to the urban population, the population that lives within 150 kilometres of the southern border with the United States, and that issue offsetting services that are of a higher cost to more remote communities, like those that members of the Conservative Party represent.
There are very clear impacts on rural communities. So rather than running forward, hell-bent, to adopt a motion when the due diligence has not been done, when the responsibility has not been shown, and when legitimate questions have been raised by Mr. Bélanger as well as by Monsieur Laframboise, Monsieur Carrier, and myself, those issues of what the impact of this decision would be should be taken into consideration.
Very clearly, when you had a court decision yesterday, this Conservative push to try to ram the motion through doesn't make sense. We raised it. We said very clearly that we needed more information, that the Conservatives were not aware of the implications of what they were trying to do and that there were questions that needed to be asked of Canada Post and remailers, and the Conservatives have consistently refused to do the due diligence, consistently refused to have those witnesses brought back so that the committee could make a decision that's based on substance and on actually understanding the impact.
Now, no member of the Conservative Party has actually raised the court judgment and what the impact of that would be. One member said that he had read the judgment. That's wonderful. That should raise questions in his mind, as it should raise questions in all of our minds, that it is premature to ram this motion through and it is premature to try to push forward with a motion that has implications, potentially, for rural communities across the country. We need to do that due diligence.
Mr. Bélanger's motion, I think, is a very effective one, allowing this committee to do its due diligence before it starts running after motions that have what could be considered to be perverse impacts, Mr. Chair. A perverse impact is an impact that is unforeseen. A perverse impact is one that members may not have considered when they pushed this forward. And since they're not aware of what the possible implications are and not aware of the possible implications of this extensive court judgment that refers specifically to rural postal delivery, it makes sense that the committee would take the time to do the due diligence and give it the consideration it needs.
We also have our witnesses before us today. We warned members of the Conservative Party that it would be better to hear the witnesses first. My hope is that we would simply adopt this motion and move on to hearing our witnesses on this important railway inquiry that Mr. Bell initiated. We're now losing half of this allotted timeframe around this motion. I'm sure Mr. Bell is as concerned as I am that we are spending time considering a motion without having done our due diligence, when we should be looking at the railway inquiry and the implications, particularly for British Columbia. I know Mr. Bell shares my concern about that. That's why he initiated this inquiry.
I'm hoping, Mr. Chair, that we will defer this and take the time to do the due diligence that has been requested by members from three parties around this table, so that the eventual decision we take will be the right one.