I think Mr. Strahl was very clear and I think my response was clear, but I can help Mr. Bachrach along. Again, I'll be repetitive here. It's to delete from the motion any representation from the government, and if it's specific to the minister, it would delete that part of the motion.
Of course, my caveat here is that, essentially, the reasoning behind the deletion is that the government is at arm's length from the CIB—period. That's the way it was set up. I understand that the terms of reference and the creation of the CIB by the government was with the intention, as I said earlier, to accelerate capital work that needs to be done and, while accelerating that, to lessen the financial burden on property taxpayers by leveraging funds from different sectors of our Canadian economy. Having said that, while we then enter the dialogue, as Ms. Lewis intends to do, with those who are involved in a specific project....
Although I do believe there will be a lot more coming out in testimony as to the purpose of the CIB, in terms of zeroing in on this specific project I think it's imperative that we listen to the people who are directly involved with this specific project as part of this arm's-length organization, the CIB. Therefore, yes, there may be a time within that dialogue in the testimony that's provided to us that the minister might be asked to come and clarify—to give clarity to the structure, perhaps, or clarity to the terms of reference. I get that, but more than likely that won't happen because the project was discussed and the project was agreed upon by the CIB—not the minister, not the Government of Canada, but the CIB. I just think it's premature right now to ask the minister to come out and involve themselves in a dialogue that, quite frankly, they were not a part of.
With that said, I think it's more productive with our time, especially with the limited time we'll have with this study, as I'm sure is Ms. Lewis's intention—I don't want to speak for her, but I'm assuming, based on the motion that was presented to us, that it's her intention—to zero in on not only the complexities but her perceived challenges that the project has had. If those challenges are then brought forward by those who are involved in the project, then quite frankly we need to hear that. We don't need to waste time playing politics on this. We want to get down to the business of it. Those people who can give us that are the people who are involved in it, and hence the CIB invitations. We can then move from there.
Again, I don't want to be repetitive. If the minister is then needed to clarify some of those governance issues or terms of reference issues or issues with respect to the setting up of the CIB, then of course we can invite the minister at that time. Right now I don't think it's relevant. I think if we're going to get down to the project, we have to be dealing with the people who were actually dealing with that specific project.