I want to bring it to your attention that we have the minister from eleven o'clock until noon. She is here only for one hour. As I said earlier, we have requested a second date. The minister has said she will try, but she cannot come before the end of November, given the fact that she will have to deal with main estimates and responses to government reports 1 to 3. If I could, I suggest that we be very focused on the issues that we want to have the minister directly address.
The departmental officials will stay for the second hour so that we can get comments as far as the vision, the mandate, and so on are concerned. So if we could be as succinct as possible with our questions on Thursday, I think we would be more successful in trying to be sure we know what the mandate is and where we're going, coming from the minister herself, but the senior officials will remain.
You will have received a study on the main estimates in your offices by now and several votes that are referring to Canadian Heritage vote 110 and vote 115 on interim supply. If you could look those things over prior to Thursday's meeting and formulate the questions quite specifically, it would be helpful. As well, a report on plans and priorities should be on your desk when you go back. So if you could, please look at those issues.
If anybody wants them, I have eight or nine copies of a “pension tension” forum going on this morning, which I went to from ten to eleven. I did bring some copies for the committee. This is unofficial stuff.
You should have received all of those documents by email. If you could, just make sure you have them in your offices. If you don't, please call the clerk right away and we'll deal with that.
Ms. Smith.