Thank you, Mr. Battiste.
To try to bring those two things together, that was an update I was going to do, along with a couple of other updates.
The motion we had was to invite the three ministers for the two-hour panel today. Then we had Mr. Schmale's letter this morning, asking for one hour with each of the ministers, so it was outside the scope of the motion we were working with. We've heard the request that has been made.
Now, in addition, we've had our time with Minister Hajdu and Indigenous Services Canada cut short. Thinking that I knew where your motion was going, Mr. Melillo, I was able to talk to the minister's officials, and she is amenable to coming back. We need to find time in the calendar.
Now, I will mention a couple of things. The second part of that is that Minister Vandal has agreed to come for this hour, and then Minister Anandasangaree is going to come. They're trying to find time in the calendar, but next Wednesday.... The issue we have there is that we built a full panel for next Wednesday on the taxation study. I need direction from the committee if we want to cancel one of the panels on that study to bring in Minister Anandasangaree, or if we want to request resources for a third hour to do those.
To try to bring Minister Hajdu in at the same time would be challenging, but she is scheduled to come back in a couple of weeks to talk about housing. They are going to look at her schedule to see if she might be able to add half an hour for the main estimates at that point, which would still be before we have to report back.
Those are the balls that I have up in the air here as the chair of the committee. We don't need to decide it at this moment, because I'd like to get into the questions we have, but I wouldn't mind direction at the end of the meeting on whether we'd like to displace one of the panels on the taxation study for next Wednesday with Minister Anandasangaree, or if we would like to request the third hour in case we are able to get those resources. Give that some thought.
In the meantime, Minister Vandal, welcome so much to you and your officials.
Deputy Minister Valerie Gideon, welcome back. You're always a pleasant addition to our table.
We also have with us Darlene Bess, chief, finances, results and delivery officer, and Georgina Lloyd, assistant deputy minister, Northern Affairs.
I'm going to remind everybody, as we did with the first panel, that I'm going to ask us to have one speaker at a time. Last time, we got a bit over top of each other, and it makes it impossible for the meetings to happen. We're trying to go with the protocol that people have a chance to make their statement. They can go as long as they like. When they ask a question, though, I'm going to try to give reasonable time for the minister to respond.
If the person asking the question has heard enough, then I would say to just get the minister's attention and get into your next question, because ultimately this is about the discussions, but we do want the minister to be able to provide an adequate response. If we can't respect that, then we may have to suspend and restore order, but I think we're going to have a good conversation here.
With that, Minister, I will turn the floor over to you for five minutes.