Madam Speaker, some of the answers I will be giving are my own. The steering committee of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade has not yet set its agenda for work and consultation.
I hope we will be ready to go by the end of this month. We will be consulting with Canadians as individuals but also as groups. There will be interest groups and people with a special message to give us. The schedule of meetings has not been established as yet. I wish I could give that schedule tonight. It would save some money on advertising.
The second question was on the work of the defence committee which is presently holding its meetings. It has started work on its order of reference. I believe there are areas which overlap.
Foreign policy first and foremost is the why issue of this exercise. Why Canadians would like to participate in peacekeeping rather than peacemaking is a debate; why Canadians tie environmental issues to the questions of aid and human rights and so on.
Defence is more or less the how we do things and that is a special study that defence will be doing as to how best to put into effect the why decision, the policy issues, decided by government and proposed by parliamentarians. I see foreign affairs as the committee that decides why we should be doing these things and defence on matters of defence telling us how best to do that.
I see all the other agencies such as CIDA telling us also as professionals in the field how best to put into action the why decision, the policy issues, that this House will recommend in its report.
I do not know if I answered the member in a satisfactory manner but I tried to address some of his points.