I'm wondering, Mr. Patry, since you served as chair of this committee for so long, if we were involved in a case like that where we were travelling, and we perhaps had a split committee, would it be possible, if we knew that there may be a problem...? Let's say all of a sudden some people had to go home for something. Could we at that point in time ask for permission to go against this motion?
I mean, if this is for here, then that's acceptable. But if during travel we all of a sudden don't have someone from the opposition....
This is a good point. If we split up, we may only have two opposition members. We've had it in the past where a member from the NDP had to go home for a funeral--I remember that one--and all of a sudden we were left very short. So Mr. Allison has a good point.
You know what? I think we'd probably cross that bridge at that time, when we got to it. This committee usually has a really good working relationship. I've been on other committees, and we've always tried to have this committee operate, in cases like that, with not necessarily consensus but with an attempt to accommodate in that type of case, when we got to it.
I just think that's something to be aware of.