My concern has been that in an hour without any external witnesses and only hearing from officials every week, we may not be hearing... There are many people like chief medical officers of health from some of the territories and provinces who would like to be able to tell us how it's going on the ground. Local medical officers of health want to be able to explain how it's going. I don't think we can be giving proper advice or oversight to the government without hearing in a formal way from the people who are actually doing the work on the ground.
I do believe there may be times when we want to hear from the officials and from external witnesses, which is easier to do if the briefing is in the first hour, and then to hear witnesses--or the other way around; I don't really care. I want us to be able to hear from external witnesses when it's appropriate, and that's why the motion says that with a week's notice we can hear from people who are calling our offices, wanting to be heard, like Dr. Sobel from Nunavut.