Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question.
On the question of cost, as Canadians know and members know, every member of Parliament is paid a salary. Each committee and subcommittee will have a clerk, a researcher and such other staff as the committee may need but within a budget that comes from the House of Commons, all of which is relatively closely controlled these days.
The cost of the members of Parliament, the cost of the offices, the cost of the office space-we are not going to go out and lease a floor of an office building somewhere in Ottawa. We already have committee rooms that will be put to use-are being absorbed almost exclusively at this point in the existing budgets of the House of Commons.
In terms of the powers and the mandate of the subcommittee, or any committee of the House for that matter, those mandates are primarily set out in the standing orders of the House, but they are very general. The mandate of the subcommittee in this instance is more than adequate to cover the subject area that we are dealing with.
As I stated earlier, the power to compel attendance, the power to require disclosure are virtually absolute. I will not say they are absolute because there are very few absolutes left any more in law and politics. They are virtually and precisely as great or as small as the members of the House will them to be in their work, in committee or on the floor of the House.
There is plenty of opportunity, mandate, power and resources to do the job.