Procedure and House Affairs committee  Possibly, and then there's Charles Walker, the chair of the administration committee.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, Madam Chair. It's my understanding that the system will be down for IT maintenance during that week, which would make it impossible for any virtual proceedings of our committee, any other committees and the House. Any deadline, of course, related to when the committee needs to report back, per the House instruction of May 26, would need to be....

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Madam Chair, to answer your question, yes, the committee could ask the three witnesses we've invited merely to submit a brief. That covers some of the elements that were mentioned by Mr. Richards, if that is the will of the committee.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Hello, Mr. Turnbull and Madam Chair. Some of the international witnesses we approached indicated a scheduling conflict, as the chair indicated a little earlier. Among them was one of the other ones from the United Kingdom, Charles Walker, who was the chair of the House of Commons administration committee.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Madam Chair, I just want to flag that last item to you, with respect to the statement.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, Madam Chair. The members of Parliament who are currently on the Zoom meeting can just stay where you are connected and, in the meantime, we will start getting on board the authorized people who are permitted to be in the in camera portion of the meeting. As the Chair indicated, it should take us approximately 15 minutes to do that.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Madam Chair, technically they are motions. You can sort of let the committee know what the motions are and what they say, and then the committee can agree to those. You can do them one at a time as well, if you want.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  If I may intervene before the committee makes a decision on that, I just want to point out the fact that when a committee, pursuant to Standing Order 109, does request a government response, a report, once it's returned to the House, can't be concurred in until such time as the government response has been presented or tabled in the House.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Madam Chair, I have nothing in particular, other than to mention that in the next two days we'll finalize the report in terms of any last translations that need to be done and the production with the Parliamentary Publications team. The means by which the report will be transmitted to the Clerk of the House on May 15 will be by way of an email from the committee inbox.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, Madam Chair. It was to not forget to adopt the motion at the end. I think you have the document.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It's not my suggestion per se. It was just the name that the study was given, which was “Parliamentary Duties and the COVID-19 Pandemic”. That's really just as much an administrative identifier as anything. You can choose whatever title you want.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, Mr. Brassard. That information came from the witness we had from Westminster, Mr. Matthew Hamlyn. He committed to provide some follow-up information back to the committee. The piece of correspondence Mr. Turnbull is referring to was one of the pieces of material Mr. Hamlyn sent back to the committee to share with the members of PROC after he appeared.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  My recollection is that the letter Mr. Turnbull is referring to comes from the chair of the British House of Commons procedure committee and it was written to the Speaker of the British House of Commons, not to our Speaker.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  To concur is just that. It essentially means that the House is ordering that something be done. Depending on the wording of the recommendations in the report and if the House concurs in the report, it will become the express intent of the House that the action be taken or the recommendation be implemented.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Whatever the committee decides to put into the report in terms of recommendations, they are just recommendations. However, once a report is presented to the House, the House is always able to concur in that report. If the House does concur in it, which means essentially that the House is adopting the report, the recommendations in it become orders of the House.