Mr. Chairman, thank you for repeating that for every member on the committee. As Mr. Kennedy has pointed out, though it is efficient to have parliamentary committees deal with issues that are of interest to them and germane to their competence, it's important for us to think about the issues we might want to address. Some of that has to do with the competencies of Transport Canada and therefore the minister, as well as with Industry Canada and therefore its minister.
The common thread in both, of course, is the company itself. It is a representative of the industry, but because we're talking about recall specific to one company, obviously that company must be here.
I think we can move this along really quickly. I stand to be corrected, and the clerk might be able to confirm whether or not the committees are unable to have a joint study but are able to sit jointly, i.e., they can sit as two separate entities at the same table at the same time.
I'm not sure whether that requires a heck of a lot of work, quite frankly, but it does give us an opportunity, as members of the transport committee, to profit from the insights that members on the industry committee might demonstrate, as they will, through their questioning both of Toyota and of the ministers. We'll also avoid the opportunity that would invariably emerge for people to say that something was not in their area of expertise or competence and that therefore questions on it should be directed to somebody else, and then we'd have to try to do that in the weeks following.
This is what I mean by having two committees working at the same time on particular issues. It's not because we need to beat anybody up, but because we need to get at some issues as lucidly as possible. So I'm going to make the case again. I've talked to a few members around the table, though not everybody, unfortunately. I think it doesn't hurt us to accept in principle the opportunity to pursue this joint sitting. If we agree that in principle we can pursue it, then the steering committee can make the decision for us as we go forward after this.
In closing, I want to compliment my colleague, Mr. Jean, for always doing his research in a thorough fashion and for giving me credit I don't deserve for things. We are, all of us, in a position where we like to think we're more important than anything else in God's creation. I once suffered under a similar illusion. I was minister for all of Ontario, so my head was bigger than this room, but I don't think I was ever Minister of State for Transport.
So in a rare moment of humility, can I ask him to withdraw his claim that I was actually something I was not? Even though it was obviously done in the spirit of giving me great compliments, somebody else, and not me, deserves them.