Mr. Chairman, it's not my custom to move more slowly than necessarily, but I was rather struck by the forcefulness of the two presenters, and I must say—and I don't know whether anybody else felt the same—that it has put some things in a different frame of mind for me. There's a different perspective from which I'm addressing all this.
Just bear with me for another 30 seconds, if you will.
I thought the last question and answer section dealt more with the professionalism of pilots and the establishment of a professional self-regulating body. I have some level of experience and expertise in that area, and I'm not sure that's where we had been going, through all of this, because in my mind, the SMS system involved a lot more than just simply whether the pilots were competent or not. But on the issue that was raised by two people, the reason I say it's forceful is because for two individuals to come forward and actually use the word “lie”, relative to what the department has been saying regarding this piece of legislation, that has to be a cause of concern for people, not because someone would willy-nilly say that, but because someone would actually have the courage to come before a committee and use that kind of language, without hiding behind any “they say” or an anonymous source.
I say that because today we've received two other submissions that we have not yet had the chance to examine—that is, one from the Air Canada pilots, I believe, and the other one from the professional pilots association.
I'm just wondering whether we are rushing ourselves into a clause-by-clause study without having an opportunity to reflect on what the last two witnesses have said and what these other two submissions will ask us to commit.
So I'm going to suggest for your consideration—I'm not going to present it as a motion, and I'm going to go along with the committee's schedule, if need be—that we take advantage of the fact that the technical experts from the department are here and that they've already submitted clauses for amendment, that we simply hear what they have to say to their clauses and then take it from there, rather than see if they'll provide input as we go along.
I would prefer to hear their rationale today, rather than as per need.