I heard you say that we have meetings Monday and Tuesday, but perhaps that was a slip of the tongue. It's good if it's just Monday and Friday. That leaves us with six meetings to get started on the COVID study, which I would point out again is a directive from the House of Commons, and to get a start on the PMPRB study, and now to hear from the law clerk. If we do hear from the law clerk, where does the law clerk fit into those remaining six meetings?
The other thing about it, of course, is that there's a timeliness aspect, because the law clerk is supposed to have the documents produced for this committee by November 30, again with a potential extension of only seven days.
I think all committee members ought to be mindful of this before we vote on having the law clerk come. It would mean we would lose a day or postpone a day that we could look at COVID, and that's my main focus right now. The PMPRB is important, but it's not as timely. It has to happen concurrently.
I'm going to encourage my colleagues to vote against this motion. I just don't see that we gain much in having the law clerk come before committee. I won't repeat the argument that I made before, which is that I actually think it's potentially harmful. Given the packed agenda of this committee and the need to get under way, particularly on the COVID study, which I think Canadians want us to be looking at as the health committee, I just think it pales in comparison and that we shouldn't be taking valuable committee time to talk to the law clerk when we should be talking about these other issues.