Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I first want to point out that I didn't receive this motion, at least not in French.
That said, I want to talk about methodology. We did some work before the prorogation. However, I haven't seen a single written note of it. I would have liked a reference document, a bit like the notes that we receive before our meetings, simply to continue to give us food for thought. This isn't about embarking on a process of interim or final reports.
We've just completed the series of meetings on the first topic. We decided, after several meetings, that we would work by topic, based on the priorities established by the parties. As Mr. Davies said earlier, before we start working together on any part of an interim report, perhaps we should first go through the topics that the parties want to study. That's one thing.
In terms of mental health, it seems that the analysts could prepare a document, similar to the notes that they give us on a regular basis, which we could read and enhance on our own, depending on our schedules. Before we go any further, let's wait until we've finished addressing at least one of the topics chosen by each party, such as mental health or vaccines. The Bloc Québécois has tried to prioritize elements of the pandemic that haven't already been covered by other parties, to avoid overlap. For example, we shouldn't spend eight or twelve meetings on vaccines. For our part, we haven't thought about this issue yet. We're biased in favour of all the collateral damage, meaning the impact of the pandemic on patients who don't have COVID-19. That said, we aren't announcing anything yet today.
So let's do what Mr. Davies is suggesting. Since there may be an election coming up, we shouldn't lose sight of all this. In terms of methodology, it's important to create a reference document that summarizes what has been said on a given topic. We should have this type of summary at each stage of the study and we should be able to add to it. Once we've finished studying the first topic chosen by each of the four parties, perhaps we can then dedicate meetings to preparing an interim report. That way, we'll stop wasting an incredible amount of time on details. At one point, it took us seven meetings to come up with our methodology. That doesn't make sense.
I want us to have a summary of the work done before the prorogation and to know what was written, out of respect for the people who worked on this. We never discussed this. I understand that we're in an emergency situation. Nevertheless, we could receive this document, which would give us information for our work and enable us to ask even more relevant questions.
If Mr. Van Bynen and the Liberals are serious about scheduling additional meetings to work on an interim report starting now, and if that's the purpose of the meeting this afternoon, I certainly disagree. I hope that my proposal is clear. We should wait until we've studied the first topic chosen by each party before we focus on an interim report. At the end of the study on each topic, the analysts should prepare some type of reference document that would then help us work on an interim report. Right now, I think that we need to manage the crisis.