Mr. Chairman, actually he is absolutely right. For the first time I am hearing some positive suggestions on the committees. On all the suggestions that have been made I do not have any difficulty, except maybe a caveat here or there, but on the general scheme of things, no. A caveat for argument's sake on TV, yes. I think it is a good idea. It is accountable. We will probably have to be accountable for committee travel.
I think travelling is a good idea because we want to hear from Canadians and not all Canadians can come here. However, I do have a problem with travel. A judgment has to be made on travel. We cannot just have blind requests coming from every committee. When I was vice chair of a committee I definitely looked at the purpose of the travel, how it worked and what the advantages were. I will tell members that I did extensive travelling on the foreign affairs and international trade committee on the WTO hearings. I thought we were totally wasting our time and our money at some of the places we went to because the input was hopeless.
I agree, but what I am saying is that there is a need to sit down and review it and see if this travelling we are doing gives Canadians a voice. I do not have an objection to it, but every travel request should be looked at to see if it functions within the broader objective of getting what we want to get at. At times we are denied travel because the government is muscling its majority and not giving it to us.
On continuity, yes, there is nothing wrong with it. We do need to have continuity in a committee. Also, the idea of smaller committees is good. We need to have smaller committees to be effective. What the member is saying to me is that he recognizes that committees need improvement and that all members of parliament, not only the opposition members but every member of parliament, should be feeling that they are contributing to that committee and doing an important job.
I am sorry, but right now if we were in the government and we had a parliamentary secretary over there, the hon. member would probably be standing up saying the same thing to me and saying to take the parliamentary secretary off, because then the government would not control it. So the hon. member is right.