My concern is that, if we go to a subcommittee, we're going to eat up more time and it's going to land back here anyway. My desire, if it's at all possible, is that....
Maybe folks around the table can just tug their ear if they plan to talk out the clock. If that's the case, then we can adjourn and go on to better things with our day.
The intention here is to nail this down, empower the clerk to move forward on the administrative side of things and then get to a place where we're actually asking witnesses questions. We've had lots of panels. We have a two-hour meeting. We have three witnesses per panel. That's six witnesses per meeting. Some of the witnesses don't get questions. That may be because their testimony is either complete or doesn't prompt members to ask them any questions. I don't think that's the end of the world.
To Ms. O'Connell's point about how witnesses are brought forward, parties have submitted lists to the clerk before in order of priority. The clerk has started at the top of the list and invited the witnesses. We have a limited number of meetings. Once all those spots are filled up, then that's the study.
My desire is to get to a point where we have some certainty around the length of the study. I think the wording “in addition to” is more clear than the wording I proposed on the fly. I'm happy to accept that as a friendly-ish amendment.