Yes, thanks for the indulgence, Mr. Chair.
I certainly appreciate the collaboration that the vice-chairs show on this committee, and in my unique role as parliamentary secretary, a lot of courtesy is extended.
I do have to put on the record that in the case of Mr. Pacetti, we had a talk two weeks ago about how many appearances there would be. I asked if Ms. Freeland might be coming. He was travelling last week, as you were, Mr. Chair.
In the number of days of committee time, I said part of those would be witnesses and clause-by-clause study, and we always start off with department officials. I had the same discussion last week with Mr. Davies. I understand that the role of the opposition is to feign outrage at every lack of procedural precision, but everyone knew the first witnesses sometime this week would be department officials on an agreement that was tabled in June. In the following days, there were some very eloquent speeches on this subject by Mr. Davies, and this morning by Mr. Pacetti.
I don't feel we are surprising our group. Usually I like to extend a little more courtesy, and I apologize for that, but let's also look at this in perspective. There was discussion about department officials being some of our witnesses. We've talked about the number of days for the last week or two weeks.
While my preference would be unanimous consent so that we can take advantage of some of the incredible officials who have been involved in negotiating this deal, which, by the way, we all agree with, if we have to use a procedural move to make sure we're using senior civil servants' time wisely, we will do that.
To you, the clerk and analysts, we apologize as well for the rather hastily arranged first meeting. Now that we have a strong chair in place and an agreement that all parties for the first time will agree on, I think we can move past these choppy waters at the start and be sailing smoothly soon.