That's exactly what I was going to talk about, Mr. Chair. I appreciate your pre-empting me.
Again, I really take Mr. Desjarlais' point here. We are talking about costs, but we're also talking about members' time and time in our constituencies. Yes, we do spend significant amounts of money in coming here, but then there's also that aspect of having surprise meetings. On this one, we had an opportunity to discuss this in the subcommittee meeting, and then we had an opportunity to discuss this in the surprise Monday meeting we had, which was a very short one, yet here we are, on a Thursday evening, planning our weeks out in our constituencies and now being told that we have another surprise meeting on a Thursday.
We are facing five back-to-back sitting weeks in Ottawa after this constituency week, and we will be here. We should, Mr. Chair, be using our allotted resources in a responsible manner.
I agree 100% with what Mr. Desjarlais is saying, which is that responsibility is fiscal. It's about taxpayer dollars and how much work we are able to do here for two hours, just so that you're able to have these surprise meetings that, completely honestly, could be scheduled during the sitting weeks as well, while we're here and while we're doing the work.
You have the opportunity to schedule extra meetings while we're in Ottawa as well, but you're choosing to bring us back during a constituency week. I really find that to be a misuse of the resources of the House of Commons and of taxpayer dollars in transporting members, especially the Conservative members, back here to Ottawa for those meetings.
Therefore, I absolutely agree with Mr. Desjarlais' amendment. I think that should definitely be there and that we should make that a consistent thing as well, so that we do recognize that when surprise meetings happen, taxpayers should know what the cost is to them to have an hour-long meeting when we're bringing in people from all across the country to sit here and do the work we could have done during a sitting week.
This is not a Standing Order 106(4) meeting. This is a meeting called by you at your discretion, Mr. Chair, and I completely respect your discretion, but I would appreciate it if you could be a little bit more judicious with taxpayer dollars in the discretion you're taking to call meetings, especially as a surprise.
I've said this time and time again, Mr. Chair: Can we please be a little bit more collaborative when we're scheduling meetings? Can we please be a little bit more efficient while we're here in Ottawa to get that work done? You called a surprise meeting for Monday afternoon. It was a very short one. It used House of Commons resources, yet here we are dealing with another surprise meeting.
I will leave that there, and I am absolutely in support of Mr. Desjarlais' motion.