Thank you, Mr. Chair.
That's what I was going to talk about. I know Mr. Nater was going to talk about Remembrance Day.
It's our job as parliamentarians to go to schools in our ridings the week before. Saskatoon has the largest indoor service for Remembrance Day in this country. Over 9,000 each year come to SaskTel Centre. What isn't told is that every day starting Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday in schools, we have Remembrance Day services. We bring in the veterans. We've missed a major opportunity here.
I've used the Library of Parliament to bring gorgeous books on the history of this place. You're talking in the classrooms, and you're dealing with 1,500 students at a Remembrance Day service at Walter Murray Collegiate. You have all the library resources there, and you're there. These are our future voters. To make that contact is fabulous the week before when we have a constituency week off.
Then I look at 2017, Mr. Chair, and you're right. I am so disappointed that I can't reach out to students in my riding previous to that week because we're here. I only have the Saturday, and then we're going to have the big celebration in Saskatoon. Then we'll deal with the Legions after. That was an oversight.
The other oversight I would like to mention, and maybe the NDP want to comment on it, is the March schedule that we just finished. We finished a heavy schedule in February. Then we had one week off late February early March. Then we were here for a week. Then we were gone. Then we were here again on the 20th. Then we were gone again. Well, that was ridiculous. We were all dead tired. We all talked in the lobbies that the March schedule was killing each one of us.
When you're here, you're here, at least a minimum of two weeks. Please, when we're here, give us a minimum of two weeks in Ottawa to do our work here. Look at you. I saw you, Mr. Chair, last Friday. I saw you and Mr. Simms at the Toronto airport. I tried to do a little play-by-play because one was going east and one was going west. I don't know when you got home, three in the morning? You were talking about that.
I got home that night, but I thought of you, the rest of Friday night to midnight saying you're still on a plane somewhere going home. I don't know how you can do that, be here one week, back in your constituency another week, then back here. That was asinine.
Anyways, thank you. Mr. Nater is going to talk about Remembrance Day, I know.
I just want to agree with Ms. May, because we have to consider you people going long distances. I thought about you Friday night until midnight. You weren't even halfway home yet. You never got home until three in the morning.