Library of Parliament committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. Dr. Lank, congratulations for your nomination. I should say on behalf of my Senate colleagues, we will miss you in the Senate. I will miss you in our daily meetings, the scroll meetings, which you ably chair. Thank you for that. I have a simple question.

Library of Parliament committee  Thank you, Chair.

Library of Parliament committee  Thank you, Chair. The opening of new branches and the changing of how you're going to operate while this place is closed are important. Do you have a plan for how you will educate the staff in all of our offices? In many cases that's the point of entry for constituents from across the country who call us in advance of their trip here.

Library of Parliament committee  I have two questions. I'll do them both at the same time. That way it will be up to the witness to determine the length. The review of campaign platforms adds a very important new wrinkle to what you do. How will you analyze your success after the campaign of 2019? Is there a method for you to come back to say what worked and what didn't work, so that if legislation needs to be fixed to support the office or to change, the information is there?

Library of Parliament committee  How will you police that? How are you going to identify and contradict the fake news?

Library of Parliament committee  Thank you, Chair. It's great to finally see you here. It's taken a while. The cost that political parties will incur to comply with new rules, has that been calculated? We continue to add more and more duties to political parties to comply with rules that we come up with in this place, but there's never any reference to the cost of that, which reduces the effectiveness because all political parties are supported by good Canadians who are donating their money.

Library of Parliament committee  I would suggest then, and I'll allow colleagues around the table to contradict me, that someone else around this table or a group that one of us represents will challenge your numbers. I'll tell you that now. They'll say that your numbers are wrong. You will come up with a number and they'll say, no, that can't be the case.

Library of Parliament committee  First of all, thank you for being here. It's about time we had a meeting. It's good to see you. You described the use of various buildings in the parliamentary precinct when Centre Block is closed, but you left out the use of East Block. I'm curious about that. East Block, of course, holds the original offices of Sir John A.

Library of Parliament committee  Will you still use young people in period costumes to do some of the tours?

Library of Parliament committee  For colleagues around the table, if you haven't taken a tour of East Block and you're a new member of Parliament, you shouldn't miss it this summer. There's history there. Sir John A.'s office is in its original form. The cabinet room that was used up until the time of Mr. Pearson is there in its original form, as is a small meeting room off of it that was used by Sir John A.

Library of Parliament committee  Thank you, Chair.

Library of Parliament committee  It would seem to me a very good question, but a question better directed to the librarian. Perhaps, as you develop the agenda for future meetings, the librarian should be one of the first people we hear from. Obviously, one of the first questions will note that this committee passed this motion on said date and will ask why it has not been implemented.

Library of Parliament committee  Historically, the Parliamentary Budget Officer reported to Parliament via this committee. That has changed, and he no longer does that. We have not had the Parliamentary Budget Officer before this committee in about five years, and it's about time that we did. In my discussions with him, he said he would pleased to come and enlighten us about government spending on this.

Library of Parliament committee  Yes. I want to welcome everybody to the committee. We'll see you next year when we have the next meeting. I did want to put a motion before the committee to invite the Parliamentary Budget Officer to appear before the committee to review the expense with respect to government spending that relates to the Library of Parliament.