Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I am going to oppose Mr. Allen's amendment. There is one important factor: respect for our witnesses. Very often, witnesses come from the West and go to the trouble of travelling for many hours to come to the committee. They are quite disappointed when they see a meeting cancelled because the committee cannot come up with a reduced quorum. That is the first point.
Mr. Hiebert's argument does not work because you, as chair, can call committee meetings. It could be that some meetings are chaired by the vice-chair. So the argument that the chair is a member of the party may not apply with a reduced quorum if a vice-chair chairs a meeting.