Mr. Speaker, I have the honour of presenting, in both official languages, the eighth report of the Standing Committee on Finance entitled “Canada: Competing to Win”.
I would ask the House to accept this report on behalf of the members of our standing committee. The prebudget consultation hearings are designed to receive the input of Canadians regarding future budgetary priorities and I believe the committee fulfilled this mandate very well.
The theme of this year's prebudget consultation hearing process was Canada's place in a competitive world. We met with over 450 presenters. We travelled to a number of locations throughout Canada. The committee was keen to receive as broad an input as possible and, as a consequence, we travelled to locations which the committees in previous years had not visited. I believe we were very successful as a committee in capturing the broad view.
In conclusion, all committee members were honoured and humbled by the enormity of this task. The challenges were many, including bringing together members, not only from all the political parties, but cataloguing the input from people across the country from coast to coast and then sorting through hundreds of prebudget submissions and coming up with a final report.
I would like to thank the members of the House who took advantage of the prebudget consultation input opportunity they were given by conducting hearings in their own areas. I send a special thanks to the clerk's office for the organization and implementation of the prebudget consultation hearings. Canadians should be proud, not only of this committee but also of the staff who put so much effort into preparing this report.
I sense your impatience, Mr. Speaker, but you should understand that thousands of hours were put into the preparation of this report and therefore two or three minutes should not be too much to ask to introduce the report to the House and to thank you for your patience.