Mr. Turnbull, the House does refer estimates periodically to committees for that exact purpose, to allow the committee to look at the estimates, to hear from relevant witnesses on those estimates, such as, for example, a minister or, in our case for the House of Commons, the Speaker or the Clerk of the House.
However, again, it is up to the committee to make the determination whether they want to take up those estimates. Should the committee not take up the estimates, perhaps because they made a decision not to or because they didn't have the time to do it and other matters got in the way, those estimates are always automatically reported back by a specified date.
In this case, for the main estimates that were referred to PROC, that date is May 31. If the committee doesn't choose to take up the estimates by that date, they will automatically be referred back to the House and they will no longer be available, so to speak, for the committee to look at.
However, there is a bit of a caveat to that. Committees in the past, sometimes not being able to meet the reporting back deadline, have chosen to do a subject matter study of the main estimates. It is just like when they refer to any main estimates, with the limitation that they cannot make any suggestions on changing the actual totals, the dollar totals in those main estimates. They can still choose to invite witnesses. They can proceed with questioning witnesses on the same basis as if the estimates were still fully before them. They just can't make any recommendations to reduce the amount of dollars that are associated with each of the votes in those estimates.