Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I am very surprised. As I have said on a number of occasions, both publicly and to several individuals, there will be a public information session for landowners today. It is specifically to start the land acquisition process, which is an important phase in the planning for the bypass and in the construction of the bypass itself. I specifically told the mayors of Lac‑Mégantic, Nantes and Frontenac about it. We have met with them on a number of occasions and I met with them myself as recently as last week.
I am a little surprised by my colleague's action at the committee today, right in front of the witnesses with whom we must still have discussions and to whom we still want to put questions. We were not even given the chance to finish the third round of questions. These witnesses certainly still have a lot to tell us. As I have repeated on a number of occasions, the accelerated timeframe we have provided has steps that have been made public.
I feel that my colleague will understand that, in any agreement—and this is one of the difficulties—there is often commercial information that may be sensitive and that a company, in this case Canadian Pacific, CP, would prefer to keep confidential. I am really very surprised to hear my colleague speaking in CP's name. I might perhaps have asked CP itself to tell us that it has no problem with this agreement being made public. I'm not sure whether its shareholders, its employees or its suppliers would even agree with CP.
In negotiations that a government as responsible as ours is conducting with those involved, a rigorous process of confidentiality must be maintained with some aspects of the negotiations. The proposal that has been put to us makes me very uncomfortable. Instead, I would like to propose that he meet with Transport Canada, so that he can be reassured as to the plan, he can be shown exactly what the mayors and all the landowners have been shown, and that he can be given the public timeframe. I would also invite him to visit the Transport Canada website to see all the information and all the steps that have been made public, so that we can talk about the timeframe in more detail. Releasing an agreement like this to the public, without Transport Canada, for one, having vetted what can be made public, would be irresponsible on our part.
I see that other members want to speak, so I can come back to this issue if need be.
I propose that we first finish the evening with the guests we have with us. They surely have more to tell us. Let's all finish our questions. Afterwards, we can discuss the significance of my colleague's motion with him. I feel that we both can agree on the timeline that must be followed.
Let's see the results of the public information sessions that are being held. Mr. Chair, at 7:00 p.m. this evening, there is a meeting that I will be attending. I feel that my colleague would be much more inclined to work with us rather than to try a purely political move today, at this committee and in front of our witnesses. It is a move that really has nothing to do with the issue and the study we are conducting today.
I'll let my colleagues comment.