I have a couple of thoughts here. As I mentioned in asking for unanimous consent with the previous one, it struck me that in our process as a committee, we got in a bit of a weird situation in the last meeting because it was presented at the end of the meeting that the minister had been invited for specific times and dates, obviously very limiting in the busyness of a minister's schedule, and had gotten back that she was not available for any of those dates.
In having a conversation around the committee table, it turned out that there was no conversation to be had because there was no mechanism within the rules of committee to allow us to do that. That's concerning to us because clearly, from our side—and I think we'd have agreement from the NDP in this case—it would be important for the minister to appear, and as a responsible environment committee, we should make ourselves available at whatever hour we can to fit the minister's schedule if she's able to appear, and that clearly is a bit of a challenge because we couldn't even have that discussion under the rules of the committee. The way the committee was set up we couldn't even move a motion in that direction and agree as a committee that we would want to have that happen.
We've done a little research, of course, and taken a look at supplementary estimates in this committee previously, and in almost every year since 2008, the minister has appeared for the supplementary estimates. There are very few exceptions in that time frame, so it stands to reason that particularly in this budget, with the numbers we're talking about being asked for in supplementary estimates going well above the planned expenditures of the department, that the minister would appear before this committee.
Mr. Chair, first of all, I'm wondering how many people are on the list to speak.