Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm rather shocked by the Bloc's support for the government doing nothing, or basically putting their blind trust in the government doing something, and then also not even offering a suggestion of an amendment at the meeting. This has been out and posted before, and I'm open to amendments to the motion. But for the Bloc to trust the Conservatives basically to do this legislation is a disservice to those Quebeckers who were left on the tarmac in Ottawa. If we're just going to pretend that the government is going to come back with some changes in the form of a communications plan, we're not going to get into the issues that are necessary to really discuss at a sophisticated level to protect consumers. It's rather shocking to think that we would actually do that, given the fact that this House of Commons actually passed a motion that Mr. Byrne had put forward that actually started a debate that I think was very important.
So now it's up to the committee, I believe, to take up its responsibility and get some witnesses in here and look at the process. Yes, the government can propose legislation or regulatory changes at any point in time. We don't control that, though. And I'm not going to concede on that or on our responsibility and give that out in blind trust without having the opportunity to be able to actually get to the issues and actually have witnesses come forward, look at the issues that we have at hand, and develop some guiding principles.
If we don't do that and don't report back to the House, then we'll basically be assuming that the government is going to have something done. Maybe it will be a priority and maybe it won't be a priority, but we're going to cede that responsibility, and I'm not willing to do that.
Mr. Jean already said he would support this motion, but apparently now he might retract that because of the Bloc's statements. It would be a detraction from this committee. This is important. This is something we've heard a lot on from consumers, and Mr. Byrne's motion was one that was supported by all members of the House.
So I would say that we should get on with this, get this motion passed, and then in the fall we will come back. The government has a plan B and they might have something come forward. That will be in collaboration with the committee here, and the committee will look at that, and we'll also look at the opportunity to be able to have an influence on the actual legislation.