Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I think we've landed in the right spot with this in making sure that these witnesses will be heard. If the letter proves to be insufficient, we'll have the opportunity now to call them forward. However, it does pain me to suggest that we extend this even further. The women's study is in front of us. I don't know why it is not the priority of the opposition at this point to get to that, but it's clearly not, and I think it's important that I reiterate it. The work of this committee is to get these studies to the House and get the recommendations to the government in a timely fashion, and that is being threatened right now.
It's important that with the subamendment that was just passed.... As many of you know—all of you have been in committees for a while now—questions come up even after interventions from witnesses, and I suspect there will be questions from the letter we'll receive, hopefully in a timely fashion, from those who are tasked with building this monument for our veterans. I suspect we'll have that opportunity, but I would strongly encourage this committee to move off this issue and move towards the women's study report we have in front of us. That's what veterans are asking us to do. That's what veterans are waiting for. We also have many other studies in front of us, including some that I've gone into great detail in the past to remind this committee about. We need to get to those studies.
Mr. Chair, as you rightly pointed out at the beginning of this meeting, we have a very limited number of meetings left. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you said 16, which may sound like a lot, for those at home, but when you consider the runway we have in front of us and consider the slate of agreed-upon motions that are in front of us, it's not. I can tell you that we will not get done what we should have been able to get done because of the mission creep on this study.
We all know that governing and the work we do up here are about making choices. We know that the opposition is making a very clear choice here to push for this study, push for, again, an opportunity in their minds to embarrass the government and stall this committee. I was very pleased to hear Mr. Casey's intervention today suggesting that despite our inability in this committee to get things done, the national capital region is not in any way hampered by that. I hope that is comfort to veterans who are watching this. I think we need to continue to encourage the national capital region to do the work they are entrusted to do and make sure they have the resources necessary to do that work and continue that work.
We know that much has gone into the design and planning, and we started from a really rough spot. We know the previous government's choice to put this monument under a bridge was not well thought out. I've talked to veterans who had written letters to the previous government asking the government to please reconsider this, and I think it's imperative that we recognize that there's a lot of trust we need to build back on this project. There's a lot of concern out there that this project is sliding again. I am looking forward to that letter from the National Capital Commission and to being able to show veterans that this work is moving forward in a timely fashion.
That said, I had hoped that over the two-week break the opposition on this committee would have reflected on some of the interventions that I and my colleagues made in previous meetings when discussing this and would have recognized the importance of this committee and the importance that veterans place on this committee. Often in committee, we question whether anybody is paying attention. I've been the chair of a committee and I've talked to people about—