Thank you, Madam Chair.
It's interesting; we had a number of very constructive meetings over the last little while, and certainly I hope we can move back into that type of environment. In terms of today, obviously we had some ideas as to who we could bring forward as witnesses, but we barely gave 48 hours' notice to these folks. It was less that 48 hours' notice, because by the time these folks were contacted, there was less than that much time. In this committee we can't even bring forward motions in less than 48 hours, never mind bringing whole lists of witnesses forward, so I understand why there may have been some reluctance on some folks' part.
I understand there are a number of people who have said they can show up at different times. This afternoon didn't work for them, but they can show up at different times, and we should entertain those witnesses on the dates that work for them, if, in fact, we want to hear from these folks. Let's accommodate the folks who have told us there is a timeframe in which they can show up to our committee.
We did get a response from Minister Raitt, which clearly stated that she nothing to contribute to the study, and she specified exactly why. She said that her office had searched for relevant records, and no records were found with regard to this. We are looking into an issue that actually doesn't fall inside her department. It falls into the transport department. The green fund is a specific fund, and it's not related to her department. She looked specifically for any type of engagement with this issue and found none, so certainly what we, as a committee, want to do is to find relevant witnesses who can contribute to this hearing.
Madam Chair, we do have a number of meetings that have been solidified. I would agree that if the committee determines that it wants to change what's on and what has been confirmed, we are certainly able to do that, but the 10th and the 12th have been designated for main estimates.
Mr. Snowdy has indicated that the 12th works for him to attend our meeting. So if we were to retain the 10th for main estimates, take at least half the meeting on the 12th for main estimates with the witnesses who have been secured, then if we needed an hour to speak with Mr. Snowdy, we could do that in the remainder of that meeting. I'm just thinking we may want to accommodate him when he's available. Then we have openings for witnesses on the 26th.
If we gave notice now to the witnesses who have been invited, there's a chance we'd have witnesses for that, but for the 31st we do have confirmed witnesses regarding SNC-Lavalin and Public Works. So that takes us to the end of May, and that probably gets us to a point we can work from. If things change over that period of time, we can then revisit where we're headed after that, but it looks as though we have confirmation of a significant number, with the exception of the 26th. We have Mr. Wright interested in coming that day. We could possibly fit another witness in there, but this doesn't have to be as complicated as what it seemed to have been at the beginning of the meeting.
Madam Chair, that's my suggestion. I'm hopeful that we can move through this and get some things solidified so that we don't run into the situation where we're inviting people 24 or 48 hours before we hope they'll show up. We know we'll never get witnesses if we don't give the decency of a significant lead time, especially for those people who don't live in Ottawa.