Evidence of meeting #4 for Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was marine.
A recording is available from Parliament.
1:35 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
For our national caucus, we have the 13th to the 15th. I'm sorry.
1:35 p.m.
The Clerk
You may be able to get permission to go when the House is sitting. The House would have to approve it in June.
1:35 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Why is there an aversion to travelling while the House is sitting?
1:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
It's only because there's a good chance that we won't all be able to go. There will be a limit; they won't let everybody out.
1:35 p.m.
Conservative
Jim Eglinski Conservative Yellowhead, AB
Lots of people won't be able to go anyway. We're going to have conflicts.
Why don't we shoot for that first week that we're back? There's not going to be that much going on.
1:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
So, the Labour Day.... You have something the following week. Labour Day, or that week, which is at the end of August, many people take.... I don't want to speak for the rest of the committee, but lots of people take their holidays right before school goes back. There are caucuses on the 5th and 6th, but we're talking about the previous week, which would be the end of August and beginning of September. I just know that many families do their family things then.
1:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
Okay, what we're going to do is send out a little chart. You give us your available weeks, and then we're going to hone in on the majority of people, between August and September.
If we go during the first week back, there's very little chance that all of us will get a chance to go. They don't want the whole committee out of the House.
1:35 p.m.
NDP
1:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
We're trying to get the precedent whereby we're not having everybody on the committee go. There is a cost issue. But in the summer it would be the same cost.
1:40 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
The environment committee, in my experience, almost never travels. This is one of the least travelling committees on the Hill—which is fine.
1:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
Oh, I know. The budget we have is very little, and we have so much to do.
Yes, that gets back to those two trips. If we have to split it up, then we go for the two trips, and some people go to the North and some go....
Mr. Amos.
1:40 p.m.
Liberal
William Amos Liberal Pontiac, QC
Could we look for a week in mid-August and look for a shorter period for the North, in September, in between the two caucus meeting times?
1:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
It would have to be when the House is sitting, because in September, one party has its caucus and another has its caucus, and then you're into that week, which is August-September.
But the first week back, is that what you mean?
1:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
Okay.
All right. We're going to send out a little “give us your things for August and September”—
1:40 p.m.
Conservative
Jim Eglinski Conservative Yellowhead, AB
If we were to come halfway the week before the 19th and overlapped for a couple of days, that would be the smart thing.
1:40 p.m.
Liberal
1:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
But we could leave, could we, on the 16th, and then go over the weekend and on into the next week? That's a possibility, too.
1:40 p.m.
Conservative
Jim Eglinski Conservative Yellowhead, AB
That would probably work with a lot of people.
The only thing I'm looking at is that if people from eastern Canada are going to fly to the west and look at these things, to split it up into another trip means double the amount in airfares, in a sense—
1:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
Yes, you're coming and then you're going back. It doesn't make any sense.