Thank you very much, Mrs. Block.
If everyone has heard that motion, in just a moment I will ask for a recorded vote on that motion, but before I do that, we've heard suggestions from several committee members, including commentary by yours truly, that delaying the first meeting until sometime in the early part of August might be a more prudent approach because of holidays, but also because of the finance committee's study, which will be close to completion by the first week in August. If you are all in agreement, and I will only make this suggestion if you are in agreement, if you give the ability to the chair to call the next meeting when I believe it is appropriate, and if you also have any particular suggestions as to dates to avoid and you could allow those comments to be funnelled through the clerk, we'll try to then come up with a schedule of next meetings.
Do I see some nods of agreement there?
I see some thumbs-up by a few people.
In that case, the next meeting will be at the call of the chair, but do not expect the next meeting to be called before the early part of August and perhaps even after August 8, which is the deadline for the finance committee to have completed its study. It will certainly be in the early part of August. In the interim, if you have dates that you wish to avoid, which are in conflict with your own personal schedules, please get your available dates in August as quickly as possible to our clerk, and then the clerk and I will try to establish a meeting schedule.
Lastly colleagues, start thinking about additions to the ministers who will be asked to appear on the motion of Mrs. Block. If you have other witnesses, non-ministerial witnesses, that you think would be helpful to provide testimony to this committee, start assembling that witness list and at your earliest opportunity I would suggest you start getting those names to our clerk as well.
Our regular clerk Paul will be back on the 20th of this month, and I believe that's it for his holiday session. I think he's going to be around for the rest of the summer.
We thank Michel for pinch-hitting for this particular meeting, but we should be able to proceed hopefully without undue delay, once we get into the meeting schedule itself sometime in early August.
With that, unless there's any other commentary, as per the rules established by the House, I will ask the clerk to proceed with a nominal vote.
(Motion agreed to: yeas 10; nays 0)
The motion is carried, colleagues. Thank you very much for that.
As my closing comment, I will simply say thank you to you all for your input. I will be getting back to all of you in a call of the chair sometime in early August. In the interim, please let the clerk know—Paul will be back on Monday—what your schedule will be like over the course of the summer, your availability and any potential witnesses you would like to have.
Madam Vignola, you have your hand up.
