I think the committee needs to be sensitive to costs. The chair raised a good point. If we're the most expensive committee in Parliament due to the number of witnesses coming in, I think we should be sensitive to that fact.
I think the chair would probably like to see the committee.... I mean, the chair responds to the will of the committee, so I think the chair is asking the committee to say that the normal procedure, rather than having two, which was what happened in previous Parliaments, will be that we have one as the standard operating procedure.
Your amendment is a fine amendment, so I think that's been accepted all the way around.
I think Malcolm made an excellent point about that responsibility falling to the chair. I would make one other friendly amendment, then, and it is that in “be made at the discretion of” we take out “the Chair”. We could change it to “of the committee”, because the chair responds to the committee, and I think the chair has had tremendous latitude in setting up witnesses.
He has done a great job, but I think this leans more to your point, Francis, in that if the committee feels there are these circumstances, the committee is going to have a discussion on it and the chair will follow the will of the committee.
So just to touch on Malcolm's point, I think it's valid that this should just be worded to say “at the discretion of the committee”, because it's going to be the committee that gives direction to the chair in those circumstances where warranted.
So this would be another friendly amendment, then: that we remove “Chair” and replace it with “committee”.