Yes. The amendment says that the study ends at the end of these one and a half meetings.
That would mean there would be no opportunity for the committee to decide to bring more witnesses.
Is there any other discussion on this?
I would ask the clerk, then, to take the vote, which is on the amendment that the study end at the end of those one and a half meetings.
(Amendment agreed to: yeas 6; nays 4)
The amendment is then added into the entire motion.
Now, for the benefit of the committee, I will read to you the entire motion so that you know what we will vote on.
The motion is that the committee extend its current study into sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces; that the committee invite Zita Astravas for one hour; Lieutenant-General Carignan and Leah West to appear together for one hour; and the provost marshal and the chaplain general of the Canadian Armed Forces for one hour; and that the study ends at the end of these one and a half meetings.
Is there any discussion?
(Motion agreed to: yeas 10; nays 0)
The clerk, the analysts and I will work together and come back to you with a schedule that fits those things in and meets all of our timing.
The one point that was raised during our discussion that I do want to discuss is the possibility of changing. In the future, if we have studies of a sensitive nature, does the committee want to entertain doing something different from the current time allocation for questions—you know, the first round with everybody having six minutes and the second round with all the timing.
One of the things that other committees have done when there was sensitive testimony was to say that each party would get a question, the person would be able to answer and there would be no time limit on that sort of thing. We would go around, each party would get one question and you would keep rotating, so that there isn't so much pressure and we don't have to interrupt witnesses during sensitive testimony.
Does anybody have any commentary on that?
We don't have any of those type of witnesses in the existing study, so it's something the committee can also consider later.
I see that people are nodding that it's a concern but you don't look entirely sure. Maybe we should take some more time as a committee and look at other options. One thing I would ask the clerk and the analysts to do is to reach out to people who are experienced in trauma-informed witness interviews and ask them if there are best practices the committee should consider. I think that would be very helpful.
With that, we now return to our consideration of the pay equity report, where we're making tremendous progress. We are down to the recommendations.
Is it the pleasure of the committee to continue in public or do you want to move in camera for this?
Ms. Hutchings.