Thank you.
I took note of Mr. Poilievre's points, and I think the distinction here is that the proceedings in the virtual meeting environment, particularly Zoom, require an additional and quite extensive amount of technical support that has come up long after the rules, which Mr. Poilievre pointed to, were established. Of course, all members who have experienced committee proceedings before the pandemic know that the usual practice is for the chair to perceive general agreement around the table when it's time to adjourn a meeting, and that usually occurs at the anticipated scheduled hour of adjournment.
Ordinarily, committees should continue sitting if the members wish to, but the proceedings under a Zoom environment, the virtual meeting environment, are different. As a result, the House has organized, particularly through the offices of all the whips, to set a schedule for committees to meet, to ensure that each committee has the necessary interpretation and multimedia support to provide the service in this new virtual environment. To ensure that those services are available, the whips have agreed to a strict, set schedule when committees can meet, and if committees wish to continue meeting virtually outside of those times, they should request and obtain approval from the whips so that administrative support can be made available. It's not to contest Mr. Poilievre's point that the committee has a right to meet, procedurally, but from a technical and an administrative perspective, the whips have agreed to collaboration to make sure that committees can meet and receive the services they've come to expect.
It's an administrative and a technical explanation—