We'll get started
Welcome to our guests. We'll do a proper official welcome in a minute, but I have some very quick technical things that I think we should get out of the way first.
I don't know where Mark is, but he should be coming soon. I want to welcome Geng Tan, Julie Dabrusin, and Robert Kitchen to the committee today and thank them for joining us.
I want to remind people that we have moved the meeting next Tuesday, because the commissioner is doing her reports relevant to the committee. I'll be leading that in the morning; hopefully, you can all join me. She has very good topic headings for the reports, which I think will be of great interest to us.
On that point, I think it's important that we have an opportunity to have the commissioner come in front of us. We didn't for her last reports, because we had a very aggressive schedule to try to get the report done before we broke for the summer. I want to make sure we have that chance.
Is there any disagreement to have the commissioner come before us as we're in that period of report writing? We're back in our ridings for a week, after next week, after our testimony is all heard. The analysts will be report writing. Then they will need a week for translation. I thought that the following week we would have the commissioner come. We will see what date she's available on one of those two days.
Do I have any disagreement that this is a good way to go forward for the committee? Do I need a motion, or can we just agree that she comes in that week? We'll work out with her what will work for her.
Okay? I think that would be great. So we've got that. That's good.
The meeting on Tuesday has been moved. We booked 11 o'clock to 1 o'clock, and we booked 3:30 to 5:30. I think the 11 to 1 slot wasn't going to work for some of you, but I think the 3:30 to 5:30 slot was available for everybody.
Just confirm that, please, and then we can make sure that we take the other booking off. You don't need to do it right now; I'll just reconfirm at the end of the meeting that we're good, and we'll pick that time that I'm looking for—I think 3:30 on October 3.
Did she give us a date...?
Oh, we may have a problem. But I'll talk to her and see what we can do.
I think that was the only technical detail I needed to make sure we got cleared before the weekend.
I'd like to formally introduce the guests with us today. We have Julian Smith, director of the Centre for Cultural Landscape at Willowbank; Chris Biebe, manager, heritage policy and government relations at the National Trust for Canada; and Karen Aird, president, and Madeleine Redfern, director, of Indigenous Heritage Circle.
Thanks to all of you for being here today.
We have Julian Smith's presentation already up here, so I thought we might start with that. If you're all right with that, we'll proceed.
I would just remind people that I use two cards. When you get to within a minute of your time, I'll hold up a yellow card—I just don't like to interrupt—and that way you'll get a sense of where you are with your time, because we don't have a clock behind us. When I hold up the red card, I don't mean for you to just stop what you're saying, but I do mean for you to wrap up your point because you've run out of time.
Thank you so much.
Please start.