I'm sorry to do this, but we need to get to the order of business. I was very generous in giving the committee more time, but we really do need to wrap up at half past the hour, and we have some orders of business that we have to get done. Thank you.
At the subcommittee we had a rousing discussion on what we might do going forward and how we're going to get the information we need to feel good about our report.
We came up with a recommendation that we would take the drafting instructions time period, which is right after the Thanksgiving break, and hear from witnesses in Ontario, Quebec, and the Maritimes. By noon Friday, everybody needs to let us know what witnesses they want to hear from, so that we could then judge whether we would be able to do that within the time period, the extra two days, or whether we would need to consider more time.
I will discuss the “more time” after I get the witnesses from everybody. We haven't heard from a lot of people yet, so we really need that tomorrow so that we can judge how we move forward.
I would like to suggest that we can't make the final decision on where we're going and how much time we might need until we get the witnesses in front of us and assess what that looks like, which will happen on Friday. What we need to do today is agree on and vote on taking the drafting instruction time that we had designated and hearing witnesses on protected spaces. Then we will have a subcommittee meeting next Tuesday and go back at it again, once we know the witnesses we're going to have.
The 18th and 20th will be for witnesses in Quebec and Ontario and Atlantic Canada. We do recognize that we have not heard from the Inuit. There was a suggestion on maybe hearing from some people on the land claims, so I really need to get those names. We tried to get one of the Inuit to come, but unfortunately he wasn't able to. We're inquiring to see if there's another opportunity that he may be able to come in front of the committee. We open the invitation, and if they can't come, they can't come, so we'll have to see.
Is it clear what we're doing right now? We're just agreeing, with a vote, to devote the 18th and 20th for those witnesses that I'm going to get from you all on Friday by noon, and then, based on what everybody brings forward, we will discuss at the subcommittee next Tuesday how much time we may need.
Is that fair enough?
The motion is—
Sorry; Mr. Eglinski, you want to speak.