Mr. Speaker, we are certainly capable of doing that if we have the budgets to do it with. As it is now, a committee first has to get permission to travel from everyone in the House. I think a committee should have the ability within itself in a majority way to decide if it is going to travel or not, and second, it should have the budget and it should live within that budget.
This is not something new. Most committees have the ability to travel. The finance committee does it on a regular basis every fall in its prebudget hearings. We have had the fisheries and oceans committee do extensive travel, and the transport committee as well. This is nothing new and by and large it is a very useful exercise. Also it is less costly than when the executive does it. I have seen budgets for when departments carried out the same kind of exercise throughout the country. They were much more costly and involved than when committees of the House did it.
I do not have a problem with it if the responsibility for and the decision to travel rest with the committee, within the confines of the House sittings and so forth. There has to be respect for quorum calls and for the ability of the government to pass its legislation and so forth. Everyone understands that and it is why we have so-called off weeks. Maybe we could deal with the scheduling. I think that the authority could easily rest within the committees as long as they have some control over their budgets.