Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would note that it was government members of the committee who suggested having a meeting about the estimates process and inviting the PBO because it was preparing a report. It now seems that the PBO has prepared a report the government disagrees with, so it no longer wants to hear from the PBO.
Having said that, I'm open to our committee studying the new advertising policy. It's not clear to me that we need two meetings for that study. I do think it makes a lot of sense to spend at least one meeting planning out the procurement study that we're going to do in the fall so that we can conduct that study in an effective way. In fact, I believe the rationale from government members for doing the procurement study in the fall was that we would be able to plan it out before Parliament adjourns and then conduct it in a more effective way when we resume.
I would propose to amend Mr. Whalen's motion, with regard to meetings, by deleting “Thursday, June 15” and leaving in only “Tuesday, June 13”. This would leave June 15 open for planning the procurement study, as envisioned by the motion that Mr. McCauley has on the Order Paper.