Information & Ethics Committee on April 21st, 2016

[The Clerk]

I could recheck with them, but when we went around, we did some tours, we had some negotiations going on with the four commissioners' offices, and that was the outcome. I could re-verify this.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

I would appreciate that.

[The Clerk]

The last time, the committee did the four commissioners in one two-hour meeting, and apparently it was said to be a lot; hence, the tendency here is to have them in two meetings.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

That would be my suggestion.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

At least you'll cut the time, too. We could add witnesses on those two days.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

I agree. I don't think we need four hours for the four commissioners.

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Otherwise, when's the limit by which we need to vote on the estimates?

[The Clerk]

By May 31 we have to table a report in the House.

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Louis-Hébert, QC]

We couldn't do it on May 31?

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

If there were a problem....

[The Clerk]

We need to vote at the latest on the 19th.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

I'm pretty good at being in two places at once, but that's a tall order.

[The Clerk]

The voting itself won't take 10 minutes.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

I think Mr. Kelly's point is a sound one. If they're not available on the same day, we can do one hour with two of them and have an hour of witnesses. I don't know what the consensus of the committee is, but four hours seems a lot for four commissioners.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

On the other hand, I'm also not getting the sense that we have a whole lot of people left on the witness list to exhaust.

[The Clerk]

I need instruction from the committee on who to call. There's a long list of people, but there are also lots of institutions with no names, such as universities and things like that.

[Rémi Massé, Liberal, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

I'll provide some names for Shared Services and others.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

I can give you some further instruction on that as well, Michel.

Also, if I remember correctly, the commissioner, Madam Shepherd, said that she wanted to appear after all the other witnesses have appeared.

Do we want our final day of witnesses to actually be May 19? Do we want to hear from the commissioner for an hour and then finalize our report with the analysts and give further instruction?

Michael and Chloé, is it possible for you guys to give us a report on May 17, so that we can have a couple of days to review it, or how do you see this happening? My understanding is that you want to send a report to translation on May 24 or 25, during the break week. We would come back after the break week, on May 31.

We would need, I think, to look at least at a preliminary report before it went to translation. Or do you want to just send your report to translation, working from the basic instructions, and that would be our working copy upon returning?

[Michael Dewing]

I believe that generally the draft report has to be distributed in both languages.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

It does. So all we would provide to you on May 19 would be drafting instructions.

[A voice]

That's right.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

That's right. You're absolutely right.

Would it be possible to have a list of...?

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Do you think one week is enough time?

[Michael Dewing]

It would be one week to write and one week to translate. If it needs to be done sooner, we can do it.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

You're going to write on the week of the break, and then it's going to take another week for translation.