Mr. Chair, Mr. Kennedy 's comments are of some concern to me.
I have asked the Quebec Union of Municipalities to survey its members and inform us of concrete cases. In theory, when officials from the Quebec Union of Municipalities appear before our committee, I will ask them whether the Town of Côte Saint-Luc has raised the issue with the union.
If not, I hope this is not political partisanship. In fact, I could easily write to the representatives of Quebec's 1,100 municipalities in order to ask them whether they would object to appearing before the committee. That would be very simple to do, but I do not want to get into any political games. I am doing so because I want to show the government that there is a certain problem, but this has to be done without any partisanship, or else our attempt will not succeed.
I therefore hope that Mr. Kennedy's request is not partisan, in the sense that he would like to see appear before the committee the municipal representatives he contacted and who spoke to him. Before I agree to that, I would ask that we hold a meeting on June 10 with the Quebec Union of Municipalities, which will explain the steps it has taken in Quebec to gather specific cases from its member municipalities. We had an agreement on the issue: there had to be specific cases.
I would prefer to proceed with the municipal unions rather than the municipalities directly. It is a matter of lightening the committee's workload. We should never lose sight of the fact that some deadlines are set for December, and others for next March. Therefore, if we are to start playing political games as Mr. Kennedy wants to do, then we will have to hold meetings every day until next March, and at the end of the day, we will not have made a decision.
In short, I would like to draw the government's attention so that a decision is made as quickly as possible. I would like to wait a bit before agreeing to Mr. Kennedy's request.