Thank you, Madam Chair.
I apologize to my colleague publicly for calling “inaudible” while we were live.
Both motions are obviously very similar in scope. My concern is the timeline of Mr. Turnbull's motion. While bringing forward a motion that is more streamlined, I will give him that, and focuses more on what the Chief Electoral Officer's report is, in his intervention Mr. Turnbull talks about a fulsome study. I'm not quite sure that, given the timeline of November 16, we would be able to come to a fulsome study as such. Therefore, my concern in regard to Mr. Turnbull's motion would be that, first, the timeline is too short.
Madam Chair, I know you spoke of the urgency the Chief Electoral Officer expressed to you. Again, with the information and the intervention that Mr. Blaikie brought forth, I would be more inclined to support dispensing with Mr. Turnbull's motion and going with Ms. Blaney's. Perhaps we can come to a friendly amendment on a timeline and agree as a committee that we are focusing on the Chief Electoral Officer's recommendations sooner rather than later and we can do an interim report on what the Chief Electoral Officer's three recommendations are.
I see an issue in terms of setting a definitive timeline for November 16. We need to make sure we hear what the Chief Electoral Officer brings forth on Thursday and decide at that point whether we are going to see ourselves in a four-to-six meeting study. We also know that we have provincial elections taking place in my province of British Columbia currently, where we moved our voting day, our e-day, to a weekend. Saskatchewan is undertaking theirs next week. As well, we have the history of New Brunswick's election. It would give us a little more time, again not being so rushed; but to really develop that witness list, too, I think individual groups or parties will have an opportunity to expand the witness list.
Again, as we are in unprecedented times, we need to make sure that we're not putting undue pressure on our analysts to quickly turn around a hastily done study just for the sake of expediency here or because we feel that the Chief Electoral Officer is expressing some concern in terms of time. It's our duty to make sure that, as Mr. Turnbull said, we are doing our job. We owe it to Canadians to make sure that we're looking at most or all areas of this and our concerns. We do not want to put Canadians' health and safety at risk.
I appreciate Mr. Turnbull working through the night to put forth this motion. It is well meaning. However, we have a motion before the committee, and on Mr. Blaikie's side, I think if we can come to some friendly amendments on that, we can dispense with Mr. Turnbull's motion and then work to try to right-size Ms. Blaney's motion to something more amenable to the committee and get to work on it as soon as possible.