Evidence of meeting #6 for Status of Women in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was witnesses.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
No, I know what Rachael is saying and I thought I did say that.
I was thinking we could pick a different date, but any witnesses for the steering committee to look at should be in by Thursday, and then we have a list to look at next week.
Conservative
Rachael Thomas Conservative Lethbridge, AB
You guys have a lot of work to do, and it's going to be really frustrating if you go to the effort of putting together an initial work plan and we come to you two days after you've done all of that work with another plethora of witnesses.
Liberal
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
People work to a deadline, and I do think we need a date—
Liberal
Conservative
Committee Researcher
Yes. My understanding is that you would like next Thursday to be the deadline for witnesses, but that on Monday you would need the list with the biography of everyone as well. Is that correct?
For translation purposes, that will be very tight. Could I suggest even Wednesday midday? An extra day or something would be helpful for translation purposes.
Conservative
NDP
Sheila Malcolmson NDP Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC
Thank you.
I'd benefit from hearing the original motion from Ms. Sahota, and I would be grateful if we could commit to that. Then we could figure out the loose ends.
While I have the floor, I'll say that there's one question that I do have on the main motion. Why are we starting with this one and not with gender-based analysis? I wasn't aware of there being a debate on the floor around that. That's one question.
The other one is just a bit of a reality check on the ability to scope out witnesses if indeed it is something that we can always add as a new idea if a witness emerges. If it truly is open and organic, then great, but my reality check for next week is that a lot of our young staff have kids on spring break, so they're not going to be in a position to do the research for us. Also, some of us are leaving the country—fortunately to be with the United Nations delegation—so we're going to be short of some of our Status of Women staff as well.
If Thursday is the deadline to get new witnesses in, great, but to me, with the seven industry witness panels that we have set up here, it feels like we're actually going to have quite a lot to chew on for the next couple of meetings as far as testimony and inquiries go, so I'm not sure that we'll benefit from rushing the work on the NGO witnesses.
I may be the only person who is in the position of having a challenge in coming up with a Thursday or Wednesday deadline, but I'll ask the question on whether we actually need to rush that part of it that quickly.
Thank you.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Marilyn Gladu
It is certainly at the will of the committee. For example, should they decide that we aren't going to be able to meet on the 24th, the next day would be April 12. That then gives us quite a bit of time if we have seven different organizations to hear from. It's at the will of the committee.
Ms. Vandenbeld.
Liberal
Anita Vandenbeld Liberal Ottawa West—Nepean, ON
On the issue of the 24th, I think it seems quite likely, from what I'm hearing, that we will be having a Thursday sitting on the 24th, not a Friday sitting.
Liberal
Anita Vandenbeld Liberal Ottawa West—Nepean, ON
Even if it isn't, when we have departmental officials, they're here in Ottawa, so it's less difficult to change them. I think we might go on the assumption that we're meeting on the 24th, although that doesn't necessarily change what Sheila is saying.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Marilyn Gladu
No, that's true enough, especially since, if we are meeting on the 24th, there are seven different departments, and I'm not sure which ones would be available. But you can see the amount of time that it takes to interview even one department, so I'm in agreement with Ms. Malcolmson. I don't think we necessarily need to rush the work, especially considering that people are away and it is March break.
Ms. Sahota.
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
My initial motion was basically along the lines of why we are rushing this to begin with. That was the whole thing. To begin with, why are we rushing this and why do we need to have all these witnesses lined up immediately at the beginning? It seemed like there was some kind of rush or structure, which was why we had to do it in 24 hours for some reason.
That's why I was proposing a longer time, maybe a week, but if you need a week and a half or two weeks, as long as we have these departments in place and we have initial witnesses to get rolling on, I'll throw this back to the committee to say it's okay if we come up with another date that we can unanimously agree on.
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
I was wondering if the analyst has any other foundational-type witnesses who could fill up a third meeting for us? People who are outside of the department, but who have a sort of broad overarching....
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
No. The example I use is that at public safety we had the Canadian Mental Health there today. We were talking about PTSD. They're an umbrella organization, so someone like that.
Are we short of days? If we meet on March 24, and then we're back on April 12, we have two meetings. Is that right?