Thank you very much.
I'm open to Monsieur Ste-Marie's suggestion to take out the item around the prestudy today, with the cautionary note that I know, in the past, there have been many extraordinary meetings of the finance committee to deal with the budget implementation act. At a certain point, there will be a desire to move things along, because I'm sure there will be a number of items in the BIA that the government wants to see implemented before the end of June so that it can carry on with the business of implementing its items.
I know that committee life has been challenging in the pandemic context, with the constraints on resources and things like that. That's why I'm concerned about seeing the committee tie its hands and forgo time leading up to the BIA's passage. I think it's important that we not end up feeling unprepared to deal with the clauses of the bill as it goes through.
That's why I'm open to a prestudy on this one. While I think it's regrettable, if the past is any guide, the fact is that budget implementation acts have been getting bigger, typically, not smaller. This means that unless we're able to stop the practice, what we need to do is make sure we're finding time in committee to conduct a proper study, which is why I'm open to the idea of a prestudy of this bill even though.... I think this may be where Mr. Fast is coming from. Prestudies of bills are not something I like, as a general principle, but this one is likely to be large and we're going to want time to look at it.
It's about trying to find the time, in a context of limited resources, to have a proper study. I know there are other committee members who want to speak. I'm open to taking it out for today, but I think it's something we should then try to revisit before the two constituency weeks, to make sure we're not missing a window of time that could be allocated to this study of the BIA.