By happy coincidence, that is exactly what I was going to do with my colleague Mr. Schmale.
First of all, I want to thank David Prest for attending as a witness. David has unparalleled experience in our caucus, working up here through all kinds of different circumstances over three decades and, of course, in various stages of life: as a young parent and then as a parent of a growing family, and so on.
My first question, David, is for you. Regarding the family-friendly events, I agree with you. I have a sense that the reason these things tend to fall apart is that we get periodic tsunamis through here. Good ideas come along and become part of the culture, and then you get 200 new MPs out of the total number and many of the good ideas are just swept away and have to be rediscovered.
Thinking of what you suggested, I just jotted down possibilities for four possible events. One is doing it from when our year begins, which is September—that is, something in the autumn. I was thinking of maybe a Halloween party. We used to do one with the help of the Speaker—that's after the confectioners shut down theirs. Anybody who has kids who have been loaded up with candy knows that too much candy is not family-friendly, but there could be a Halloween party.
There could be a Christmas party that's child-oriented.
We tried one year doing something in February with the co-operation of the Speaker. February is the period when the blahs set in.
Finally, there could be something either on the lawn or maybe in the East Block courtyard—outdoors, anyway—in June.
Does that strike you as a reasonable number of things, or would you suggest different ones?