Hon. Leo Housakos: Thank you, senator, for the excellent question.

The committee itself will decide when to start its work. It is at the important stage of planning its future activities, and as the senators who are members of several committees in this institution know, we can’t move forward without a good plan, so we need time. As you know, the steering committee hasn’t reached a consensus yet, and the work is ongoing. The committee will start by establishing a plan before going any further.

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That is the tradition when it comes to work at the committee level, and as we all know, colleagues, committees have a degree of independence in this place. They take guidance from this chamber. Of course, I recognize that this is the ultimate superior authority when it comes to giving direction to committees, but as has been expressed over a number of weeks and months in the chamber by colleagues like Senator Cordy and Senator Downe, committees are masters of their own destiny. So we are going to allow the Transport and Communications Committee the leeway that they need in order to come up with a plan, to come up with directives and try to follow, of course, the guidelines that have been given by this chamber.

The last time I checked, the motion that you have questioned about has no particular date or timeline. The government has given us the flexibility to do the robust study that needs to be done on such an important bill.

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