Mr. Clerk, you may respond.
Evidence of meeting #4 for Veterans Affairs in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was family.
A video is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #4 for Veterans Affairs in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was family.
A video is available from Parliament.
The Clerk of the Committee Eric Glavin
Thank you for the question, Mr. Richards.
For our next meeting on October 7, there will be five witnesses. There will be two from the Atlas Institute for Veterans and Families, one from the Wounded Warriors Canada, one from the Veterans Association Food Bank and one from the Veterans Transition Network.
When it comes to the total number of witnesses, approximately 55 names were recommended by members. The current plan is to allocate those as equitably as possible among the witnesses that were recommended by all of the parties.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Airdrie—Cochrane, AB
Typically, we're going to do about five witnesses or so in a panel. Is that our plan?
Sometimes in the past, I found what's happened is we've done four or five in two different one-hour panels. I find it doesn't leave anywhere near enough time for questions for those folks. It appears we're not going to do that. We're going to stick with a panel of four or five.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Marie-France Lalonde
It will depend. Sometimes if we have two individuals here, we will allow them a little bit more time. With three witnesses for an hour, sometimes it is enough and sometimes it is not. We'll play as to the value added.
I want to make sure that all of you, like today, go through the full round of questions and that you have as much time as possible to share your perspective and also ask the questions that will lead to recommendations for this report.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Airdrie—Cochrane, AB
Before we move on, I would just say two things.
First of all, I would strongly encourage that we avoid the two panels for an hour as much as possible. I find that by the time the meeting starts and you go through this whole list of things that you need to preamble, the meeting has to adjourn, the people go and thank everyone, and it takes 10 minutes before we start the next panel. That second panel especially ends up that we don't even get through a whole round of questions. I would strongly encourage us to avoid that as much as possible. That seems to be a lot of time wasted. I would strongly encourage us to do that.
I'm surprised that the number wasn't higher in terms of witnesses. I believe we submitted about that number of witnesses ourselves. I would assume some of the other parties have also submitted witnesses. Unless there was a lot of duplication, I thought it might have been higher than that. With that number of witnesses, we may want to consider whether we want to add meetings as well.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Marie-France Lalonde
As I said, for me it's to create a structure so that all of you have equal opportunities to ensure.... We said a minimum of six, but if we need eight or 10, I don't think that's set in stone, Mr. Richards. For me, it's very important. However, at the same time, I just want to make sure there's a structure in place and a calendar for all of you to know how we are going forward.
Ms. Gaudreau, I would like to give you the floor before adjourning the meeting.
Bloc
Marie-Hélène Gaudreau Bloc Laurentides—Labelle, QC
I simply want to say that if there is insufficient information to decide which witnesses to invite, it is up to us, as parliamentarians, to prioritize. We know that some witnesses may have more information to share with us than others.
To facilitate the clerk's work, it would be good to keep in mind that some testimonies may be shorter. However, we should not put the names of five experts on the list. I propose that all my colleagues establish priorities and provide a little more information to make the process more efficient.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Marie-France Lalonde
I agree with you.
The clerk, with the support of the analyst, does an extraordinary job of ensuring that the range of witnesses accurately represents the requests of the committee members. We do allocate the necessary time to people, both experts and individuals who tell us their stories, so that we can present strong recommendations in our report.
Is it the will of the committee to adjourn the meeting?