SSIT Committee Meeting

SUB-COMMITTEE ON THE SITTINGS OF THE HOUSE OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON PROCEDURE AND HOUSE AFFAIRS

SOUS-COMITÉ DES SÉANCES DE LA CHAMBRE DU COMITÉ PERMANENT DE LA PROCÉDURE ET DES AFFAIRES DE LA CHAMBRE

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, November 27, 1997

• 1022

[English]

The Chairman (Mr. Bob Kilger (Stormont—Dundas, Lib.)): Pursuant to the order of reference from the committee, we will resume consideration of the sitting schedule of the House of Commons. With us again today is the clerk of the House, Mr. Robert Marleau. Mr. Marleau has a few remarks he wants to make at the beginning of this meeting.

Mr. Marleau.

Mr. Robert Marleau (Clerk of the House of Commons): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I have been asked to see if we could come up with a couple of extra scenarios for the committee to consider. I have provided them to the clerk. They essentially provide for adding a little more time to the evening...against the comments that were made by both Mr. White and Mr. Blaikie. You have that before you.

The other thing is I have pulled from the standing orders of the

[Translation]

National Assembly of Quebec the Standing Order relating to the interpellation held on Friday morning from 10:00 to 12:00 with a brief description of how it works. I should note that there is a report that evaluates the parliamentary reform carried out in Quebec over the past 10 years and that the assessment is not entirely positive.

It would appear from commentators that the desired result has not been achieved, namely strong participation in this Friday's interpellation on the part of members. It tended to turn into an encounter between the critic of one party and a minister or parliamentary secretary.

[English]

The Chairman: Are there any other questions to Mr. Marleau about his brief remarks on the Quebec...? One issue here is, I think, in our discussions, informally and otherwise, and maybe we could formalize it here....

[Translation]

Good morning, Mr. Bergeron. The meeting has just begun and Mr. Marleau has made a few introductory remarks on the additional information we requested with respect to the calendar as well as some comments on the practice of the Quebec National Assembly known as the interpellation. To sum up, Mr. Marleau reported that the experience of the interpellation was not entirely positive.

• 1025

Mr. Robert Marleau: I was not expressing my opinion.

The Chairman: Exactly.

Mr. Robert Marleau: I noted that this was the conclusion of an evaluation of this ten-year practice.

The Chairman: You are quite right to make that clear, Mr. Marleau. I wouldn't want to lay a trap for the Clerk.

Mr. Robert Marleau: I'll try to get a translation of this evaluation and provide it to the committee in the near future.

[English]

The Chairman: Perhaps to bring a greater focus to the discussions, I think the issue of not sitting Friday is a non-issue, just going by comments I've heard and conversations I've taken part in. I don't know if that's a fair comment or not, or if anyone wants to comment on that or on whether we should have a greater focus on what other business or what other way we might structure that day.

Is that a fair statement, or am I ahead of myself here?

Mr. Bergeron.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron (Verchères, BQ): First of all, I would like to apologize for arriving late. It was by no means intentional. You know me well enough to realize that I try to make a point of being assiduous and punctual. Once again my apologies.

Having said that, I'd like to express a reservation about the consensus or the apparent unanimity relating to the choice of Friday, as the chairman seems to believe. Of course I think it would be in the government's interest, if we were to eliminate a day, to have this day be Friday. But I am by no means certain that it would be in the interest of Parliament to decide on Friday as a non-sitting day rather than Monday.

Let me explain why. If we decide not to sit on Friday, the government may decide to make a certain number of announcements on that day, in the knowledge that Parliament will not be sitting on either Saturday or Sunday and that any reaction from Parliament will have to wait until the next Monday when the attention of the media and the public is likely to be focussed on other matters.

If Monday were the day when we were not sitting and an announcement were made on that day, Parliament would still be able to react, either in question period or under Standing Order 31 or pursuant to other means at our disposal such as our possibilities of communicating with the media through the House in order to express the reaction of the various political parties to this measure.

So if we decide not to sit on a particular day, I would be more inclined to chose Monday in the interest of Parliament and of parliamentarians. This is the opinion I'd like to present to my colleagues. On Friday we could deal with the points that are normally on our order of business for Monday. That is my first comment.

As to how we would make use of this day when there is no sitting, I think that we could envisage a hybrid formula combining the interpellation period which would only last two hours and private members' business to take up the remainder of the period.

In my view, it cannot be definitely concluded that the experience of interpellation at the National Assembly of Quebec has been poor, as was suggested previously. Of course, I may have a biased opinion since I was a member of the National Assembly for four years.

I think it does introduce a dynamic element into parliamentary life and gives parliamentarians a chance to have an in-depth discussion with a minister, something that can't be done during the 35 seconds of question period with a short and evasive reply from the minister that also lasts 35 seconds.

Members of the opposition interested in a particular issue have a full two hours to work together with the minister. I can tell you that most of the time it is a chance for a very constructive exchange since the minister arrives with his entourage of advisors and members of Parliament, accompanied by their advisors as well. It's a very structured and thorough exchange.

Generally speaking then, this interpellation gives rise to very constructive exchanges. The remainder of the time could be devoted to private members' business.

• 1030

The advantage is that other members of Parliament would not be required to be in Ottawa on that particular day. In terms of savings for Parliament—but I agree with Mr. Blaikie that it's not merely a matter of looking at this from an accountant's point of view—it's obvious that if the House continues to sit for approximately the same number of hours, there will not be significant savings in House operations even though there may be some economies of scale.

That's all I have to say, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: Mr. Harvey.

Mr. André Harvey (Chicoutimi, PC): I don't think this has been given consideration for economic reasons. It's a matter of bringing out a better balance in our work in Parliament and in the ridings. There's also the question of our family life since most Canadian citizens realize that a politician's life, particularly at our level, can sometimes have a quite adverse effect on the life of the entire family. I think our fellow citizens realize that this is a significant consideration.

But to come back to Mr. Bergeron's point, I think that we were willing to sacrifice Friday because it isn't really the same kind of day as Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. Friday is the end of the week, there are fewer parliamentary and committee activities. It's easier to do away with Friday than Monday.

Monday is the beginning of the week. There is a different spirit. Work is starting in almost all parliamentary fields and people are getting ready for a flurry of activity on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I'd be more inclined, Mr. Bergeron, to chose Friday for the suspension of sitting and make up for it, if necessary, by two or three extra hours during the week. Still, I maintain the same position as the other day, that is that there is no reason for us to attempt to make up for the loss of this day since Friday is far from being a day off for us. All you need to do is take a look at our timetables for Friday and the weekend to realize that we don't have too many days off.

So Friday would be my preference both from a parliamentary point of view and from the point of view of committee work. It is a day with a much lighter work load in all respects, that is undeniable. Making up for Monday might prove to be more difficult.

That's all I have to say, Mr. Chairman.

[English]

The Chairman: Mr. White.

Mr. Randy White (Langley—Abbotsford, Ref.): Mr. Chairman, I gave you a calendar I would like passed out. I did this whilst on the plane coming back. When you get five hours on the plane there are things you can do.

I think this would explain most appropriately where I would come from. I don't think we could entirely close down a day in the House of Commons at this point. I just don't think it would be acceptable out there. I would suggest perhaps a better way might be to deal with private members' business on the Friday. If you started early on Friday you could go through to 2 p.m. and get five hours of private members' business in. That would allow us an hour a day, which we take from 5.30 to 6.30 p.m., on private members' business.

Having said that, I would start at Monday. There is an option for those who are here—many people are here on Sunday nights—perhaps to add two more hours of private members' business on Monday morning, early. If people can't get to it, then defer it to Friday or something; it is an opportunity in there. Then we would have regular government orders.

I would suggest—we talked about this last week—that one of the difficulties in the House of Commons seems to be that you stand in debate and there are maybe as few as three to five people in there. I'm not sure what kind of debate we're truly having in the House. It seems it's just a forum for speech making rather than debate. If that could be improved, perhaps we could have better attendance and more meaningful debate.

To do that, because members are so busy in other areas, such as committees—for instance, here we are now, and not in the House—perhaps we could take an hour or two in the evening to set aside for committees. That's why I used the time 6.30 p.m. to 8.30 p.m. Perhaps we could allow that time for committees, perhaps Monday or Tuesday night. It could be any night, but I just suggest those. Perhaps we could go to Tuesday and Thursday morning early; it could be possible to find one hour then each day for committee work as well.

• 1035

We could also take the late show. It is really unfortunate that the late show is a late show and not an early show, because, to me, in that particular venue we see some very good questions and some interesting answers take place in the House of Commons. But typically it is too late for any media to be very interested in it. It would seem to me that if the late show became the early show, you would have a much more active time in that most members would try to be on there, because it is really a very good forum for that. So you could move the late show and committees into the early morning and get it away from late in the day.

Of course, you have to worry about when votes are going to take place. I don't think I resolved the vote very well; 8.30 to 9.30 isn't exactly the best time to hang around for votes. But I had, quite frankly, nowhere else to put that.

The Chairman: You only had five hours.

Mr. Randy White: On Wednesday it was easy to plunk it in at 6.30. So perhaps Tuesday at 6.30 p.m. could be votes and Wednesday could be committees, so to speak.

Those are some of the things I see as being wrong. Friday we should use perhaps private members' business. The late show should become an early show. We could more effectively use Monday mornings for private members' business, for those who want to be there. I myself could make those kinds of things. I know lots of my colleagues can. I think committee meetings should be a little bit farther away from the regular day where government orders take place. Also, try to get some effective debate in government orders, or if you are not in the House, at least you can be doing your government business, your research or study, preparation and so on.

Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg—Transcona, NDP): I just wanted to ask Randy a question. In his proposal basically the idea is that committees would not be meeting when the House is sitting. Is that the idea?

Mr. Randy White: Yes. I was trying to get away from that concept.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: Isn't it the case that there would be considerably less time for committees to meet in this timetable than is now the case?

Mr. Randy White: It is possible. I don't know how much time is taken up.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: We've got only the time from 6.30 p.m. to 8.30 p.m. and from 9 to 10 o'clock on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Right now they meet in the mornings, the afternoons. I don't have the numbers at my fingertips, but to me this looks like a lot less committee time. I wonder if, unless you change the committee structure, you could actually fit all the committee work that needs to be done into this space.

Mr. Randy White: You may not be able to. I don't know that aspect of it. But certainly on committees you could go on Tuesday from 9 to 11 o'clock. I was just trying to keep it as much as possible out of the government orders.

The Chairman: When I look at committee work in the evening, I can't help but ask myself what the impact might be on witnesses.

Let me get to the Friday question period. Would it be your intention, then, that it be a question period as we know it in the present format?

Mr. Randy White: I'm open to changes in question period from the current format.

The Chairman: I'm not talking about Monday to Thursday, but is there any willingness to consider a somewhat different format for question period on Fridays?

Going back to the clerk again, I don't know whether he has knowledge of any other models that might exist or that have been attempted or considered before. Mr. Marleau.

• 1040

Mr. Robert Marleau: There are only so many models of question period in the Commonwealth. The one in Great Britain has a roster system for ministers where they're scheduled to be in the House as the prime minister or department to be questioned. They have a list on the calendar, and once they've been on the roster they go to the bottom of the list.

But just off the top of my head, if you're thinking of hybrid formulas and the comment Mr. White made about the value of the late show, the late show is a little like the interpellation in Quebec, because the ministry gets noticed, there's a follow-up on a subject that has been raised, and there's an exchange. So you could look at a hybrid formula using some of our experience with the late show, some of the structure of the interpellation in Quebec, and notice to ministers on a roster system for Friday as something that would be somewhat unique.

I don't think we can can import what's being done in the culture of Westminster, because as you know, the Prime Minister only appears twice a week for 15 minutes.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: Wednesdays.

Mr. Robert Marleau: It's now down to just Wednesdays, that's right. Mr. Blaikie is a little more up to date than I am. I must say I haven't been to London in quite a while.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: Neither have I.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh.

Mr. Randy White: He reads the newspapers well.

Mr. Robert Marleau: That culture is very different from our parliamentary culture, particularly our parliamentary question period.

But you could look on Fridays at a hybrid formula of either notice by party, notice by parties in turn, or simply a calendar roster set down by the Speaker. In Quebec for the interpellation it's the Speaker who sets it down on application from the parties, in terms of using notions of urgency of debate and current affairs. You could experiment with that kind of formula. I'm giving you this off the top of my head as a result of the comments that have been made here.

The Chairman: I appreciate that.

Mr. Blaikie.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: What is the goal of this? Is the goal of this to ask—and I don't mean this critically—how to address the concerns of members generally? The government can have legitimate goals. Is one of the goals of the government to not be expected to have all the cabinet ministers here on Friday? That's a legitimate concern, but I think it should be on the table if it's one of the things that's concerning the government.

From an opposition point of view, I don't have any problems with the current form. I have a lot of other concerns about the current form of question period, but I don't have a problem with the fact that the ministers are expected to be there, although I notice that on some Fridays hardly any are there. Last Friday lots of them were there. It seems to vary from Friday to Friday.

In spite of the fact that very few are there, my experience of the last several Fridays is that it's frankly still very good for the opposition. We raise issues. The media covers what we raise, even though it's not the Prime Minister who answers. It might be the Deputy Prime Minister or even sometimes the parliamentary secretary who answers. It doesn't disappear.

But if the government has a concern about this being too much to expect of the cabinet in current circumstances because of workload or whatever, I'd like to know.

The Chairman: Let me put that on the record, Bill. I don't come to this with a government position. I don't come at it from a cabinet concern. You might know more about that than I do as House leaders, particularly you and Mr. White, who work on a daily basis with our House leader, Mr. Boudria. This may be something you touched on briefly or otherwise in your summer deliberations before this Parliament began its sitting. But it's an issue I've had a strong view about and a strong interest in as a backbencher.

• 1045

Like the comments earlier by our colleague from the Progressive Conservative Party, Mr. Harvey, I'm of the view that there would be a way—and I don't have the answer; I'm still looking for it—to arrive at a better balance between, as parliamentarians, government and opposition, our legislative work here in Ottawa and our constituency responsibilities back in our respective constituencies.

Like André, and I'm sure all of us, we wouldn't make any apologies for any slight additional time we might have—I say “might”—with our families, because it seems that wherever we are, whether it's here or in our ridings, we always seem to be away from home, almost as much when we're in the riding as when we're here.

So I come at it from that position. I wanted to have the opportunity to explore with you whether there was, on the one hand, a willingness to look at it, and if so, what combination or balance format we might arrive at.

I'll go to Mr. Blaikie and then Mr. Bergeron.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: I want to reiterate a concern I expressed at the last meeting. I'm willing to consider, as is my caucus, ways of providing more of a balance, or more time for constituency work, etc., but I think we'd have two concerns.

One, what we lose politically by hypothetically losing question period on Friday needs to be compensated for.

Second, Mr. Bergeron, I take your point about Monday. I think you're right, the government will probably, just by their very nature, no matter who they are, behave in the way you suggest, but I think taking Monday is much more politically problematic than Friday.

But the other concern I raised at the last meeting was that in order to compensate for this Friday business, if we add more weeks to the calendar, or if we sit later, etc., we're just making those four days crazier, and it's crazy enough already.

I would be more excited—well, I don't think I could get excited about any of this; I would be “more pleased”—to try to find a way to separate one thing from another. Many of us are constantly in a position of having to be in two, three, or four places all at the same time. I don't know how to do that. But it seems to me that while we're working at it, this is something we should keep in mind.

When I look at Randy's proposal, I don't see enough time for the committees to do their work. There is probably room for some doubling up of committees meeting at the same time as the House, but maybe what we need is some time in the day.... It's getting so that, with the exception of Wednesday morning, the House is never not sitting. This affects our ability to do other things.

There used to be a time when you knew the House wasn't sitting and you could schedule another kind of meeting—a luncheon meeting, or this or that—and you weren't derogating from what was going on in the House, but with the House going on all the time now, this really contributes to the feeling of being on a treadmill.

I'm not doing a “good old days” routine, because there was lots wrong with it, but the House didn't sit in the mornings at all. Committees did a lot of work in the mornings when the House wasn't sitting. The House didn't sit until 2 p.m. Then in the afternoon, yes, there could be conflict, and in the evening between committees, but you had a big space of time when committees could meet. You also had a supper hour when the House wasn't sitting. I don't know how to bring that back—there are elements of it that I don't want to bring back—but I just feel we have gotten ourselves into a way of operating around here that is not entirely healthy for anybody.

• 1050

[Translation]

The Chairman: Mr. Bergeron.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: From what has been said, I think it is certainly possible to come to some common understanding. If colleagues, for reasons I can understand though they strike me as rather surprising, would prefer Friday to Monday, I have no objection.

I have explained to you my point of view as a member of Parliament and I think it would be better to give more weight to the role of Parliament than to the use the government could make of a suspension of sittings on Friday. But if you prefer Friday, good enough.

I don't understand when people say that if we do not sit on Friday, the four remaining days would be even crazier than they are now. That's not how I see it. I may be mistaken but Parliament does not strike me as being particularly effective in its proceedings on Friday.

Very little progress is made in advancing legislation on Friday, as a general rule, and the question period is usually extremely insipid with an almost empty House and almost no ministers present to answer our questions. So I would agree with Randy's proposal to set aside the entire morning for private members' business.

We could consider choosing a period at the beginning of the afternoon for a trial run of something similar to interpellation to replace to some extent Friday's question period, without necessarily requiring the presence of all ministers and members in the House. Only the interested members and the ministers concerned would be present for this period.

However, I do understand the concern of opposition parties about losing a part of the regular question period if we eliminate one sitting day. I gather, and Bob will correct me if I'm mistaken, that the government leader was quite open to the idea of adding on to the question period of the other four days the number of minutes lost because of the removal of Friday's question period.

The Chairman: Perhaps my colleagues could give you a more specific answer.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: In one of our discussions, this was the answer you gave Mr. Boudria. I personally don't think the government would be unwilling to consider this kind of agreement so that instead of having a 45-minute question period every day, we would have 50 or 55 minutes and add five minutes to members' statements every day. This would mean we could have a period for interpellation on Friday—perhaps we could come up with another name for it in the House of Commons—and we could also give some thought to what the possibilities are for evening sittings.

I am in complete agreement with Mr. Blaikie when he says that nothing prevents us from sitting in the evening. Personally I don't come to Ottawa to party or to get together with friends. I come to Ottawa to work and I'm ready to work in the evening to make the most of my presence here in Ottawa and to justify the travelling and living costs paid by taxpayers. So let's keep Parliament busy when members are present.

We could continue sitting until later in the evening, not necessarily until 10, 11 or 2 a.m. as was the case yesterday, but until 9:30 and in this way we could do away with some of the House's sitting time in the morning and give more time to committees. In the same way we could avoid the kind of overlapping that occurs when there are six, seven, eight or twelve committees sitting at the same time as the House. It's become a terrible quandary for whips and the leaders as well as MPs.

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I think we will be able to come to an agreement based on the everyone's comments, the timetable proposals made by the clerk, by Randy, and the various suggestions we have heard.

I think we can find some common ground rather quickly to allow us, and this is a fundamental issue, to reconcile the two realities in members' work, that is the reality of the legislator that requires we be here and do our work as legislators and control the activities of government, but also our work as representatives of the people.

As I was saying last week, we represent ridings that are sometimes two or three times as big as provincial ridings in terms of territory and population, and we are here twice as long as our provincial colleagues.

People often have the impression that we are never in our ridings, and they're right. We are not in our ridings very often except for weekends. When there are meetings with municipalities, chambers of commerce or other meetings at the local level during the week, we're never present. We can never participate, and we're often criticized for that.

More and more, people are demanding that their member be present in the riding. Let's act on this new reality. Let's not reduce our hours of work so we don't give a bad impression. Let's use the last day that will never really be eliminated, i.e. Friday, and add private members' business and an interpellation formula. I think we will be able to find a formula that will satisfy MPs and our constituents.

[English]

The Chairman: I have less than five minutes, and I'd like to split them as evenly as I can between Mr. Harvey and Mr. White.

[Translation]

Mr. André Harvey: I find Stéphane's summary very interesting. I find it interesting because we have to rid ourselves of this guilt. We must not address the issue as if we were eliminating work as members of Parliament, to go on holidays.

With my colleagues, I do not raise the issue at all from that perspective because we have a lot of work to do in our ridings and because we have to get out and meet people. That's often what we do hastily on Friday. I say we have to study the issue objectively. We're under the impression that if we eliminate Friday, we have to have a bit of a lighter load.

There's also Mr. White's comment on the fact that we could perhaps put more emphasis on the late show. That is really the time when we can examine issues in greater detail. How could we emphasize that?

I think that the late show should be the most important part of Parliament, but unfortunately, the media doesn't follow it very much, except perhaps regionally when a press release can be issued. Something must be done there.

However, I don't think holding committee meetings only in the evening makes much sense. We have to rethink committee operations.

[English]

The Chairman: Mr. White.

Mr. Randy White: Bob, we have a fair bit of agreement around the table already. The next time we meet, I think we should try to start on a day. Friday seems to be the day we're looking at for one aspect of it, that being the travel, which is a high priority for a lot of members.

Another priority that I think we have to look at is the effectiveness of the House itself because of this schedule. I think Bill is right, this is just too busy for the people in this room. He probably has more meetings than I do, but it depends on how many members are in your party. I think I myself have six committees meeting in the run of a week. With various subcommittees like this and so on, it's just crazy. One meeting to the next is ultimately achieving very little when you look at coming in here early in the morning but not really resolving anything by the end of the day. You've just been at meetings and the work has piled up, so you stay at night to try to knock that off.

I think Stéphane is right. If we're here in the evenings, as most of us are, maybe some of that work could be put there on a committee basis, which would allow us to have flexibility during the daytime. If we look at private members' business on a Friday, for instance, it gives members who don't have private members' business the opportunity to get out of here or stay here and do whatever they want, but there's maximum flexibility in that.

• 1100

With the late show, which is a good concept, the reason there's non-attendance is that the members are just too darned busy, and it's after private members' business, so you have to sit around and wait for a four-minute question, basically. That part should be in the earlier part of the day. There's an opportunity to use some of our flex time, such as on an early Monday, for private members' business, to add to the importance of that.

We have a lot of agreement here. I would suggest the next time we meet we start on a day and rebuild a calendar to see if it works, and just keep it open from there and see what we come up with.

The Chairman: When we're all looking at Fridays, there may be a case for starting earlier to finish earlier on a Friday, for instance.

I'll give the last word to Mr. Marleau.

Mr. Robert Marleau: After listening to some of the comments and some of the consensus that seems to be emanating from your discussion, I could take a stab at another scenario, building on what Mr. White says about Monday and Friday, private members' business, which should be no loss to government time since it would be picked up at the usual time later in the day, and a hybrid formula of l'interpellation, as Monsieur Bergeron suggests for Friday.

Also, since Wednesday afternoon is roughly two hours, two and half hours of government time, there may be a way of building those two and a half hours to compensate elsewhere and leaving that as a free afternoon for committees, along the lines of what Mr. Blaikie was saying, so you would have member statements, question period, and maybe some late show stuff following that. That would not build that many people into the late show context, but those who had an interest could.... So right after QP on the Wednesday there could be a couple of late shows, rather than having them scattered over the week. That might help to free some committee time for members.

The problem with an early Wednesday adjournment, however—and I'm just looking at the statistics on voting—is that it's your second most important voting day for deferred divisions or collapsed votes. There's that.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: You could still have votes later.

Mr. Robert Marleau: Yes. After committee adjourns at 5.30 p.m. or 6.30 p.m. you could still schedule a voting hour. Deferring of votes is now very much part of the parliamentary culture, and so even then members would expect that after being in committee they must return to the chamber for a voting period.

If you would like, I could try to build that into a scenario and see what it gives.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Can I ask a question, Mr. Chairman?

The Chairman: I would like to let you, Mr. Bergeron, but we are already late for the meeting of the Procedure and House Affairs Committee, Mr. Adams' committee.

[English]

Research will be providing us with information going back to other committees that have previously looked at this question. You will get documentation from that.

The other matter is that we had given ourselves an objective a few weeks ago, from the procedure and House affairs committee, to table a report or recommendations to the committee. I think you would agree that I would simply go back there next week and ask them to extend the deadline of this subcommittee.

Would there be a willingness to meet before we leave, or do we want to wait until we return after the winter break?

[Translation]

Mr. Bergeron?

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I will be brief. I would agree with trying to do as much as possible before Christmas. I feel that we're close to an agreement and I think we could reach an agreement rather quickly on trying a new schedule after Christmas, on an experimental basis. I also agree with trying to meet before Christmas, by speeding up the pace of our meetings in order to work out a consensus.

[English]

The Chairman: Would you leave it with the chair, then, to try to organize another meeting, with the clerk as our witness once again, if we could avail ourselves of Mr. Marleau on another occasion between now and the time the winter break comes upon us? Agreed?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

The Chairman: We are adjourned.