Mr. Speaker, that is a very insightful question because notwithstanding the government's approach on this, it is not just about having some skills at chairing a meeting. I have been in a lot of meetings before and I have never chaired them because I have never felt that I was competent enough to do it in some circumstances. People have to know that they cannot punch above their weight. They have to recognize their own limitations and apparently Mr. Murray does not recognize his own limitations.
By his own testimony, Mr. Murray said that this is a panel of experts with 24 of the most brilliant minds in this country on the environment and the economy. What is the committee going to do, make up its own mind what the agenda is going to be? In that case, we do not even need a chair. We could just ballot the question and have a secretary record what they are going to study, but the truth is that the chair is going to have to set the agenda.
In order to set the agenda, the chair is going to have to know about the issues and is going to have to know which of those issues are going to be priorities. Maybe this chair would send us off studying feebates when in fact we should be studying cap and trade.
By Mr. Murray's own comments he said that his job is to ensure the agenda is set. He said that we need a chairperson who can make sense of policy. In his own admission he says one needs to know environmental policy, to evaluate those policies, and decide what is a priority and what is not a priority.
The people of Canada deserve to know that their government works for them, including these round tables even though they are not direct parliamentary committees. They need to know that what is out there is actually serving their interests and studying the right things.
Are we going to pay people to do something that is not even a priority for the House? That is a waste of my time. How does that serve me as a parliamentarian? Mr. Murray said he wants to serve us as parliamentarian. Well, he should have some understanding of the issues to evaluate the right priorities and provide the right advice, so that we get the right policies in this country. That takes some expertise in the environmental area, not just an ability to chair a meeting.