Thank you for your comments, and that's why we're having a subcommittee meeting today, to look at where we want to go for some future studies and where we want to conclude this one.
Where I hesitated on the numbers—what you've quoted are the bottom-line numbers—is that I'm saying that there are a whole bunch of the witnesses who crossed party lists, and that's where it's not....
On the numbers I gave, the way that the analysts have assigned the numbers is that, if the same person is on the Liberal list and on the NDP list, they're assigned to the Liberals as the majority party. It's the same as if there were a Bloc and a Conservative; the Conservatives get attributed that witness.
That's what I'm saying. In the other numbers I shared today, there were a lot of witnesses who were on multiple lists, and that's why it's not easy to attribute simply a number to a party, because there is lots of overlap of the witnesses. Where there was overlap, where we thought there would be mutual interest, unfortunately in the way that I presented the number on Monday, they were attributed to the majority party, either the Liberals or the Conservatives, which then ends up skewing the numbers in appearance.
That's just a clarification on that.
We're going to go Mr. McLean and then Monsieur Simard. Then, at that point, we'll go into camera for a continuation of the discussion.
Go ahead, Mr. McLean.