Okay.
Colleagues, thank you very much. I think we've had an extremely productive conversation this morning, and I appreciate the consensus we're hearing around the table. It demonstrates significant cooperation and a need to do better.
What I'm understanding, just for the record, is that this will be discussed amongst the individual caucuses in some matter of seriousness, and that at some point in the future we'll put it on the agenda. My guess is that it might be February, but let's see how things go. If it's not going to take too much time, we could have a brief discussion about the results of those discussions at caucus here at the meeting, and then decide how further to deal with it, if at all.
Is there any confusion on that? Are there any questions? Okay, perfect. Jamie, we'll mark that down for some future date. We're good to go.
Ladies and gentlemen, what I want to remind members is that we do have before us now Bill C-31, which is, of course, as a direct result of our report from this committee. That will be coming before this committee on Thursday. Regrettably, we're putting the conflict of interest code on the back burner, so to speak, for a little while, as legislation takes precedence.
Members, I just want to remind you that, at the very most, we have seven meetings left before the Christmas adjournment. Before you, you should have a blank calendar. I would certainly like to have a discussion now about what witnesses we need. We have some already. We need to schedule the witnesses, and if necessary—hopefully it's not necessary—I would like to have a brief discussion about the possibility of extra meetings so that in fact we can get our work done prior to the Christmas break.
What we know so far, colleagues, is that on Thursday, Mr. Nicholson will be appearing before the committee--that's confirmed--to begin the discussions. He has been invited. He has agreed, of course, to come.
There are some other witnesses here, I can tell you, who have requested to appear, but also, before I forget, I want to make sure that we agree, as a group, on notice for any amendments. We did agree prior, when we were studying Bill C-16, to 24 hours’ notice for any amendments. First of all, can we get that out of the way? Is that acceptable to members, that there be 24 hours’ notice for any amendments?
I'm seeing nods around the table. Okay, then we can just record that that will be the rule with respect to that. The witnesses who we feel that at this point we need to hear from, and as well have asked, are the B.C. Civil Liberties Association; and Duff Conacher, who is the coordinator of Democracy Watch. We have an individual request that I'm not 100% sure of, from an individual named Tina-Marie Bradford, from British Columbia. She's a lawyer. She has requested to come before the committee.
As well, we had requests from our friends in the Bloc to have folks from Quebec in to discuss the issue of bingo cards. My thinking is that Quebec might be able to offer some insight as well on how they have managed the issue of folks who are homeless, how they've dealt with it.
And then, of course, Mr. Kingsley will be appearing--Mr. Shapiro may want to appear, but I don't see the relevance.
May I just suggest as chair, to lead things along, that we have Mr. Nicholson coming in on Thursday. So next Tuesday, might I suggest that we invite our colleagues from Quebec and the B.C. Civil Liberties Association via teleconferencing? Obviously, I will leave it to the committee to agree to that. I have no position on Mr. Conacher or the individual from British Columbia, the lawyer, so I would leave that to members, if they choose, but my thinking is that we get them all in here on Tuesday, November 28.
Thursday, November 30, is adjourned out of respect for the Liberal leadership campaign. We could reschedule that to a Wednesday night, but let's see how many witnesses we come up with.
I suggest that Tuesday, December 5, which would be the next meeting, we have Mr. Kingsley in for at least the first half of that meeting to answer any concerns we come up with as a result of the witnesses.
I remind colleagues that we've had many witnesses on the report that we tabled. Much of this is going to be repetitive, but in all due process and with respect to colleagues here who may have questions, I will now open the floor for comments on who the witnesses should be.
Monsieur Godin.