--maybe that's a friendly amendment we could put into it.
“Method of travel for each caucus member”? Mr. Chair, I have been to economic action plan events, and I don't know whether or not there was no new funding or new funding. I've been to these events. I've driven with my own truck. In fact, I think I've driven with my own truck to every single economic action plan event that I've announced, because they're in my constituency, or essentially bordering on my constituency; maybe a few blocks over I did a joint event with another member. What the honourable member is asking is that he be allowed to basically go into my office and start pulling mileage logs, receipts, and stuff like that on how I drove to an event. I just find that sort of silly.
If he is interested in basically finding out how the government communicated its economic action plan, if he did this, I think he should look again at his motion here and figure out how to make it more manageable, shrink off a few items, and bring it to a point where the request could be done.
I personally think the communication has been very well handled. It is important that there's accountability to constituents on issues. That's one of the strengths that the economic action plan has had: we've communicated directly to people the things that we've done. We've been clear that there has been a strategic plan that has been well thought out.
I think of a time when we had the Western Economic Diversification witnesses here, when we were discussing how things were on time, and they noted that the rollout for the infrastructure spending for the government's economic action plan was smoother and better than anything they'd ever seen. It was more on time, costs were more accurate, and projects were getting done. It was just amazing. Frankly, a lot of it appeared to be, from what they told us as a committee--it's in the transcripts--by doing less bureaucracy, which is to be commended.
I'll turn the mike over to other members for comments, but again, as a suggestion to my honourable friend, maybe he should trim down his requests--because five days is just impossible for people to do--and focus on information and ideas that he could actually get from the department or that would be easier to get there. And frankly, he shouldn't ask if each member has taken their truck to events. I find that sort of silly. I mean, I have to report to this committee about how I use my pickup truck...? It will take days to just figure out these events, and there are going to be questions about what qualifies and what doesn't.
That's some friendly advice to my colleague to revise his motion and maybe bring it back at another meeting where it could be worked into a more reasonable and workable form. Then we could have the elements of communication that he's so interested in.