I appreciate the input of all of my colleagues. Mr. Masse is right, of course--you either do something right, or you don't do it at all.
My speculation on the amount of time that one might have spent on this or might spend down the road really has everything to do with the calculation of time allocated for other things this committee has dealt with in the past and how much time those have taken. This being a motion of the House and not a bill of the House caused me to reflect on the chronology, so my speculation is not designed to be dismissive or restrictive. It's one of pure calculation and logistics.
With respect to Monsieur Laframboise, I know that those issues were raised as well in the debate, and in fact, as I understood it, the reason the debate ended up with the result that it did is because Mr. Allison also, along with the Bloc, took into consideration, first of all, federal-provincial jurisdictions and the provincial interest in this, and secondly the question was raised as well about whether this committee would be the appropriate one.
Because there are issues related to industry and industrial strategy, and because there are issues also related to public works and procurement issues, and because there are issues related to international trade and obligations under WTO and NAFTA, etc., one could imagine that the motion might not appear to be focused on this locus as the most appropriate forum for debate.
However, it's all begun as a result of transportation-related issues, and I think there's general agreement that the department responsible is the transport, infrastructure, and communities department, the minister and therefore his department, but it was born out of a desire to move the transportation issue along.
It's not for me to judge whether the motion was appropriately crafted in order to ensure that it focused directly on the specific responsibility of one minister and one department, because as you can see, even with the amendment proposed by Mr. Allison, it tried to capture as many of the issues as possible in a motion based on principle, the principle being that with respect to issues related to transportation technology that it be dealt with, keeping in mind the interests of Canadians--and it doesn't matter where they live--and that those transportation issues be held front and centre by the department and the minister responsible.
So that really is the intent of the mover of motion 183, that it come to this committee rather than to any other.
I suspect, Mr. Jean, that while your observation may have merit, all the other committees are probably going to say that they're sorry but they are going to wash their hands of this one too, because it's not really all theirs. There isn't a precision associated with a bill, with legislation that's passed in the House, and I acknowledge that. I grant that, and I dare say that perhaps Mr. Allison, who may wish to speak to it, because he moved the amendment, may even agree, but it doesn't really advance the issue for us to put it off to another day. That's why I gave Mr. Masse and Monsieur Laframboise a little bit of flexibility and the background for having this discussion as to why this should come to this committee and nowhere else.
If it's a motion that was deemed by the House to be worthy of consideration and voted upon, then it has to end up in a particular place, and I dare say that the best place for it would be with this committee.
Does it have to be done at our very next meeting? I've already acknowledged on behalf of Mr. Boshcoff and Mr. Allison that we'll take it in accordance to the schedule that we have already definitively planned out and that we have implicitly accepted.
Mr. Jean, I don't think we need to discuss it down the road. We simply accept the principle that I laid out for you: that is, that we have this motion that received the unanimous support of the House; it seems to be focused more on transportation than other issues; and it's not going to impinge on the schedule from this committee. We accept it on that basis, or not.