Thanks, Chair.
I'll respond to a few comments. With regard to the timing, the reason we put March 8 as the target date for this meeting was that we submitted the letter with the request for this meeting on March 2. Since there were no parliamentary committees scheduled this week—or I think there is one other 106(4) motion—it was our assumption that the meeting happening today could have happened much earlier in the week and that, by some miracle, maybe we could have had those officials before our committee today.
The timing we included in the letter was with the hope that we could pass this motion and have the meeting prior to the resumption of the committee on Monday. There was no intent to bump witnesses on Monday. There was an intent to have it done this week, but clearly that didn't happen so now we're in this situation.
To my colleague, Don, my comments around Parliament not sitting this week, to be clear, were not meant to imply that we weren't working. Certainly that has not been the case for me, and I'm sure everyone's nodding here as well. I just meant to say that there were no parliamentary meetings scheduled for this week, so there was no other opportunity to address this matter.
The other thing I want to note is that I believe that AstraZeneca has declined to appear before this committee as well. That was another reason we wanted to have officials in front of this committee on this matter, given that AstraZeneca has declined to appear before the committee on the vaccine portion of the existing study. We've already had NACI and Health Canada appear on this. It would have been nice if those two bodies gave the information to the committee prior to its hitting the media, but such is life.
There's no intent here to bump witnesses. Again, it would have been nice to have this meeting earlier in the week, given that it's been four days since we submitted the letter, but here we are.
With that, I think I can speak on behalf of my colleagues in the Conservative Party. We are fine having this meeting, but it needs to happen next week. It can't happen weeks from now. Regarding Mr. Thériault's amendment, I want to make sure that we have sufficient time to question the witnesses. I don't care when it happens, but I would just like it to happen next week. If the clerk is saying we could do a two-hour meeting after our meeting with the minister on Friday, that is fine.
Mr. Thériault, if you would like to do it on Monday, that is fine.
Then, just to the assertion that it's unreasonable for us to be requesting these officials to appear in a short period of time, I would just point to what Mr. Thériault said. These officials were out in the media this week presenting findings and responding to media inquiries on this issue. I think they would likely say that they are prepared to respond to parliamentarians.
To me at this point, the firm non-negotiable for Conservative members would be that this meeting happen prior to the end of next week. I believe there is precedent for meetings to happen in the evenings, even during a parliamentary sitting week. Certainly, as the clerk has already mentioned, it could happen after the meeting with the minister on Friday of next week.
I just note that every day that we delay on this is a delay.... The AstraZeneca vaccine is potentially being delivered and we don't have clarity on this issue, and Canadian seniors don't have clarity on this issue.
To Mr. Davies' point, I do not want vaccine hesitancy to be an issue in Canada. It is incumbent upon our committee to provide information to Canadians so that they can make positive choices that will lead to the uptake of vaccines.
I hope that provides clarity. I think we can come to a consensus. As long as this meeting happens next week, I'm good and I think Conservatives are good. I just don't want this dragged out longer than that.