PACP Committee Meeting

     Honourable members of the committee, I see a quorum.

    I must inform members that the clerk of the committee can only receive motions for the election of the chair. The clerk cannot receive other types of motions, cannot entertain points of order or participate in debate.

    We can now proceed to the election of the chair.

    Pursuant to Standing Order 106(2), the chair must be a member of the official opposition.

    I am ready to receive motions for the chair.

    I nominate Ms. Kelly Block.

    It has been moved by Monsieur Berthold that Kelly Block be elected as the chair.

    Are there any further motions?

    Seeing none, is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?

    (Motion agreed to)

    The Clerk: I declare the motion carried and Ms. Kelly Block duly elected as the chair of the committee.

    I invite Ms. Block to take the chair.

     Thank you very much, Madam Clerk. I certainly appreciate the confidence of this committee in me to serve as your chair. I want to welcome you all to the public accounts committee, and I look forward to working with all of you.

    I know this is an organizational meeting, so I think the next order of business is to elect our first vice-chair. I would entertain a motion for vice-chair.

    Ms. Block, normally the clerk would carry out the election of the vice-chairs, if it's not presumptuous of me.

     No, not at all.

    Thank you.

    Pursuant to Standing Order 106(2), the first vice-chair must be a member of the government party.

    I am ready to receive motions for the first vice-chair.

    Madam Clerk, I would like to nominate Mr. Greg Fergus.

    Madam Clerk, I'd like to propose Mr. Lloyd Longfield.

    Madam Chair, I'd like to second Mr. Blois's motion.

    I would like to thank my dear colleague Mr. Blanchette-Joncas for his confidence, it is very nice of him, but Mr. Longfield is much better suited for this position.

    Thank you.

    Mr. Berthold, would you like to withdraw your motion or would you like a vote?

    I did not move a motion, Madam Clerk.

    Didn't you move the motion to nominate Mr. Fergus?

    It wasn't me, but Mr. Blanchette-Joncas.

    It was me, Madam Clerk.

    I apologize, Mr. Blanchette-Joncas. You appear one under the other on my screen.

    Would you like to withdraw your motion or would you like to vote on it?

    Mr. Fergus, I understand that you are declining my nomination. I will therefore withdraw my motion.

    Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion that Monsieur Longfield be named the first vice-chair?

    (Motion agreed to)

    The Clerk: Excellent. I declare the motion carried and Monsieur Longfield as the duly elected first vice-chair.

    Thank you to my buddies. Now I have my speech—no, no, that's okay.

    I'll now proceed to the election of the second vice-chair.

    Pursuant to Standing Order 106(2), the second vice-chair must be a member of an opposition party other than the official opposition.

    I am now prepared to receive motions for the second vice-chair.

    I nominate Mr. Blanchette-Joncas.

    It has been moved by Monsieur Berthold that Monsieur Blanchette-Joncas be elected as second vice-chair of the committee.

    I accept with pleasure, Madam Clerk.

    Are there any further motions?

    Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?

    (Motion agreed to)

    The Clerk: Excellent. I declare the motion carried and Monsieur Blanchette-Joncas duly elected as second vice-chair of the committee.

    Now, Madam Chair, would you take the reins of the meeting.

     Mr. Longfield.

     Madam Chair, I'd like to move that we adopt the routine motions that we adopted in the last session.

     Thank you very much, Mr. Longfield.

    Do you want to adopt them in their entirety as one motion, or would you like to go through each motion as it is presented?

    I'd put it on the floor that we could do them all at the same time, unless the committee wants to go through one by one, and I am prepared to do that as well.

    Yes, Mr. Green.

    I propose that, in keeping with the practices of the other committees, we go one by one so that we can make necessary adjustments as they come up.

    All right.

    Mr. Longfield, Mr. Green is proposing a different process from what you moved.

    That's fine.

    Okay, so we will move forward by consensus to go one by one.

    Mr. Green just wants me to do some work. That is okay. We have some reading to do. The first motion reads as follows:

    (Motion agreed to)

    We're on number two.

    The next reads:

    (Motion agreed to)

    Mr. Lloyd Longfield: The next is:

    Is there any discussion?

    Yes, Matthew.

    I just want to make sure that it reads “that at least four members are present, including two members of the opposition and two members from the government”, just for clarity.

    Yes, it does.

    (Motion agreed to)

     The next motion reads:

    I have a point of order.

    The co-host has stopped my video, and I'm not sure why.

    All right.

    There we go; it's there now.

    Would you also please put me on the speaking list for this? The timing of my video stopping was rather unfortunate.

    Yes, absolutely.

    Mr. Green.

    Thank you.

    I'd like to move an amendment:

    Are there any other members who would like to speak to this amendment? Seeing none, we will vote.

    Mr. Berthold.

    Hello.

    I would like a clarification on how the committee operates. Let's take the example of the appearance of the Auditor General. I imagine that, at the discretion of the chair, we may decide by consensus to give him more time to make his initial presentation.

    Of course. That would be my spirit and intent.

     Mr. Berthold, thank you for that clarification.

    Is there any other discussion on the amendment?

    Could MP Green please repeat the words in regard to the 72 hours?

    Thank you.

    They read, “That...witnesses provide the committee with their opening statements 72 hours in advance”.

    If need be, for the operation of other committees, we found that by having these statements in advance, the witnesses could provide extended statements, which offset the need for them to have more time, rather than having them come in at 10 minutes, off the cuff.

    Quite frankly, it also ensures that we have the proper translations in advance for our French colleagues; or if they're francophones, then English translations in advance.

    Thank you.

     Are there any other comments or questions?

    Again, just to clarify, the amendment would change the length of 10 minutes for opening statements to five, that we would require their opening remarks 72 hours in advance, and that we would change the order of the questioners for the second round.

    Mr. Fergus.

    Madam Chair, through you to Mr. Green, I would like to ask a question.

    I have been supportive of this amendment. I just want to make sure that this 72-hour requirement is best practices but we wouldn't refuse somebody to give an opening statement if they didn't meet that requirement.

    No, I don't think that would be the spirit or intent, but we want to encourage people to come prepared and to provide translated documents for everybody.

    It makes it a lot easier for us to follow the remarks as well.

    I'm going to start raising my hand in the “participants” function.

    Chair, through you to Mr. Green, thank you.

    In committees' past practices, sometimes you don't invite witnesses until a day or two before. Sometimes that's just the nature of the parliamentary calendar and committee schedule.

    If that is the spirit, if it's possible to provide written correspondence 72 hours in advance, that would be great. It's not a requirement, but only if possible. In that spirit I'm supportive of the amendment.

     Mr. Green.

    Thank you.

    It may help some of my Liberal friends across the way to know that it was in fact the Liberals who put this initially in PROC. I know there was a lot of discussion and debate there, but we're just following that best practice that was laid out by our friends in the Liberal caucus.

     Thank you very much, Mr. Green.

    Is there any further discussion on this amendment? If not, we will vote on it.

    (Amendment agreed to)

    The Chair: Now I believe we need to vote on the motion as amended.

    (Motion as amended agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Thank you.

    We will move on to the next motion, which reads:

    Is there any discussion? There is none.

    I see that everyone is in favour of that motion.

    (Motion agreed to)

     The next one reads:

     Will those meals be provided here in the riding?

     If I could, Madam Chair....

     Mr. Green.

    This was also discussed. The conversation was brought up with very sound critiques, given COVID and the hybrid scenario that we're in. I think where we landed or what made the most sense was that we put in that caveat for people who are in town for in-person meetings, otherwise, for obvious reasons, we wouldn't want to have food ordered for a room that was unattended. Knowing how literally some of this stuff plays out, once it's moved and carried, I just want to make sure that we're clear that this is for in-person meetings only upon the RSVP of members.

    Thank you for that clarification, Mr. Green.

    Are there any other comments?

    (Motion agreed to)

    The Chair: Great.

    The next reads:

    (Motion agreed to)

     The next reads:

    Madam Chair, I was raising my hand to say something.

    I'm sorry, Mr. Berthold, please go ahead.

    I just want to find out how our employees can access Zoom committee meetings. Can they log on directly to hear what is being said simultaneously and without delay, so they can give us good advice? On ParlVU, there is always a time lag. I'd like to know what the situation is. I've asked the clerk, and I've been told that there are phone numbers to call to listen to the meeting, but it's difficult to follow the meeting live.

     I want to know what the committee's position is with regard to our assistants.

    Madam Clerk, would you be able to speak to the logistics of what Mr. Berthold has raised?

    Certainly. It's my understanding that the member can have one member from their office present at the in camera Zoom meeting. Also, the telephone numbers we provide during regular meetings give them real-time access, so it's not like ParlVU. They should be hearing us as we speak.

    Thank you, Madam Clerk.

    Are there any further comments?

    Mr. Fergus.

    Again, I think maybe I should turn to our staffers, but I always thought that even in in camera meetings held by phone, there was a slight delay, a seven-second delay or something. I just invented the number, but it's more than just one or two seconds.

    On a point of order, Madam Chair, I'm sorry to interrupt, but my understanding is that not everybody can hear the discussion we're having right now. The people who are remote are having trouble. This illustrates Mr. Berthold's point that sometimes when you're attending remotely, the audio does not work.

    Could the technicians check into that, please?

    Why don't we allow our assistants to participate in the Zoom meeting with a closed camera? They could attend at the same time as us and hear the discussions as we go along so they can give us advice. Our assistants could be instructed to close their cameras. We would only see the people who are normally present at the meeting: the clerk, the analysts, and the MPs. That would be one way to deal with all the problems. We would also be able to see which assistants are present, in the same way that we can normally see who is attending our meetings when they are in person. If our employees attend the meeting by phone, we can't know that and we have no idea who is attending the meetings.

     Madam Chair, would you like me to respond?

     Yes.

    Unfortunately, I don't have an answer to that, but I'll check.

    I know that when we first started using this new format for meetings, the sound quality was not good when there were a lot of participants. I think it's different now.

    I don't have a precise answer yet, but I will check and then provide the information to the committee.

    Thank you.

     Thank you.

    Mr. Fergus.

    I'd like to raise a second point, Madam Chair.

    It works very well for my staff, in particular. However, people who work in a whip's or House leader's office participate in meetings by phone [Technical difficulty—Editor].

     Mr. Fergus, you're not coming through very clearly.

    Fine.

    Are things better now for the interpreters?

     Yes.

    I would like to raise the following point.

    People who attend meetings from the office of a whip or House leader do not just follow one committee meeting at a time, but two or three, depending on the schedule of the day. You can only attend one meeting at a time when using the Zoom platform. However, when you participate in meetings by phone, you can follow several meetings at the same time.

    It may be possible to make changes to our Zoom videoconferencing system so that we can follow more than one meeting at a time, but I don't think that's technically possible at this time.

     Mr. Berthold.

    Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

    Mr. Fergus, I wasn't talking about the employees in a whip's office, but about our own assistants, who are supposed to help us during the meetings. They have to be connected with us at the same time. Otherwise, they can't help us do our work as they would if the meetings were in person.

    From what I understand, the clerk will check the system's ability to accommodate our assistants. Again, I suggest that our assistants be able to participate in the meeting with a closed camera. That way, we know they are present and that they are participating in the meeting. I'm in agreement to wait for the clerk's response on this.

     Before we go to our clerk, Mr. Longfield, you had raised your hand earlier. Do you have any comments to make?

    Thanks, Madam Chair. I think it's a great suggestion that Mr. Berthold brings forward. If we were all on the same technology, that would take one of the variables out of it. If it's at all possible, it would be great to be able to accommodate that.

     Thank you, Mr. Longfield.

    Madam Clerk.

    Madam Chair, I also raised my hand.

    Okay.

     My apologies, Mr. Blanchette.

    My apologies, Madam Clerk.

    Mr. Blanchette.

    I just wanted to pass on to my colleagues some information that could be useful to them. Normally, the senior clerk should give us an answer next week about the attendance of our assistants at committee meetings held using Zoom. We are awaiting confirmation. The clerk could confirm that.

    Thank you, Mr. Blanchette-Joncas.

    That's exactly what I want to know. I will confirm this with the committees directorate.

     Are we ready to adopt this motion?

    (Motion agreed to)

    The next motion reads as follows:

     Are there any comments?

    (Motion agreed to)

     The next reads:

     Is there any discussion?

    (Motion agreed to)

     The next reads:

     Is there any discussion?

    (Motion agreed to)

    The next reads:

     Is there any discussion?

    (Motion agreed to)

     The next reads as follows:

     Is there any discussion?

    (Motion agreed to)

    The next reads:

     Is there any discussion?

    (Motion agreed to)

    The next reads:

     Is there any discussion?

    (Motion agreed to)

    The next reads as follows:

     Is there any discussion?

    (Motion agreed to)

    The Chair: I want to apologize. I received some very good instructions from our clerk on providing instructions for how we would function virtually, and I neglected to look at my email after I was elected chair, so I will make sure to do that at the beginning of the next meeting.

    I want to move to other business. I see there are no other routine motions.

    Mr. Green.

    My apologies, Madam Chair. It's not a routine motion, but I do have a motion that would have us reintroduce our invitations to past chairs of this committee to present to us, because that's where we left off prior to COVID, and we didn't meet during prorogation.

    Are you putting that motion on notice, or are you hoping this committee would—

    It's pertaining to the business. In my opinion, I would like the committee to revisit those past motions, and reinvite the past chairs as an orientation for new members to this committee on the processes and procedures of public accounts, because this particular committee functions in a highly specific way.

    Madam Clerk, do I need unanimous consent to proceed with a motion at this time?

    No. Mr. Green has moved a motion, and the committee may consider it.

    Mr. Green, do you have any further comments?

    It's pretty self-evident. Most of the chairs from the various parties are coming. I know that my predecessor, Mr. David Christopherson, had decades of experience on this committee. We would all benefit hearing from the past wisdom of these committee chairs, because it is a unique committee that we're on, one that supersedes any kind of partisanship. We want to make sure that we have the best information during that transfer.

    I was looking forward to it prior to COVID, quite frankly, but we didn't get to it. We have had so much time away, so I look forward to getting back to that business.

    Is there any other discussion?

     Mr. Berthold, please go ahead.

    I have no problem with the motion. I think it would help us.

    Mr. Longfield, you are next.

    First of all, I'd like to comment on Dean Allison, who was also a really good chair in the short period I interacted with him. He does have a lot to bring back to us in terms of institutional knowledge.

    I wonder whether part of this motion could also talk about orientation in general, that the orientation would include a previous chair coming forward to discuss the operation of the committee. We also had some very good orientation from the Clerk's office. We have a lot of new members on the committee, and I found the orientation to be excellent. If we were able to have another orientation session, showing us what the committee does when it's on a good day, what kinds of challenges we might have and how to handle those challenges going forward in a non-partisan way....

    I would suggest that part of the motion state that we bring back the previous chairs, and that we have orientation by the department.

    Mr. Green, do you see that as a friendly amendment to your motion?

    I know that Mr. Allison was newly elected in the very short period of time that we met, but if my memory serves me correctly, it was actually Mr. Kevin Sorenson and Mr. Shawn Murphy, the past Liberal and Conservative chairs, who had a little bit more time in the chair. Mr. Allison was a very short-lived chair of this committee.

    For the record, it's the Canadian Audit & Accountability Foundation that Mr. Longfield was referencing with regard to our initial orientation, which I also found to be an incredibly great start to this. I would welcome that as part of our overall resumption of this committee.

    Mr. Christopherson, Mr. Sorenson and Mr. Murphy would be the people who would be in keeping with the motion.

     Thank you very much, Mr. Green.

    I now have Mr. Sorbara.

    Thank you, Chair.

    Chair, through you to MP Green, can you read the motion from the beginning, or the motion you wish to present, please?

    I move:

    Thank you.

    Chair, through you to Mr. Green, I'm in full support of that motion, along with incorporating the comments that our vice-chair on our side made on the orientation session. I think that's a constructive motion to put forward.

    Thank you.

    Thank you very much.

    I'll now go to Mr. Fergus.

    Madam Chair, I was going to move a similar motion to Mr. Longfield's.

    I appreciate Mr. Green's motion. To tell you the truth, I could use a second orientation from the Canadian association. I'm hoping it will stick a little more in my head, because it was a lot of information they provided to us. I say this for the new members: These orientation sessions were fabulous.

    In the history of this committee, I don't know over how many Parliaments, it has presented unanimous reports. There have been no dissenting reports from this committee for a long time. I think that's because the committee has had the benefit of this kind of training. We take our fiduciary responsibilities as members of Parliament, not as political representatives but as members of Parliament, seriously to make sure that this committee continues to do great work.

    I look forward to voting in favour of this motion and getting that training back.

    Thank you very much.

    I have Mr. Berthold, then Mr. Longfield and Mr. Webber.

    Mr. Berthold.

    Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

    I would invite Mr. Green to add Mr. Dean Allison to the list of former chairs. A former chair cannot be bypassed simply because the House did not sit long in that session of Parliament. He is a former chair, so I would add him. He will decide for himself whether or not he thinks it is appropriate to come and share his experience. I think it would be disrespectful not to invite Mr. Allison, who has also been a chair of the committee.

    Mr. Berthold and I have worked together and often finish each other's sentences, which we should both be afraid of. I think that having Mr. Allison back would be very beneficial.

    I would also like to suggest that we do this as a first order of business and that we move this even into the next meeting if possible. If we could put a timeline on the motion, then I would support the motion 100% with the addition of Mr. Allison and with this as the first order of business.

    Thank you very much, Mr. Longfield.

    Mr. Webber.

    Thank you, Madam Chair.

    I just want to make sure that you can all hear me. We had difficulty in pretesting my microphones. I assume you can hear me fine.

    Great. I see that thumbs are up.

    I absolutely support the motion with the additions of Mr. Allison and such. As a new member of this committee, I very much look forward to an orientation. I served close to eight long years on the public accounts committee in the province of Alberta, so I'm curious to know how the operations here work and whether there are any differences, which I'm sure there are.

    I look forward to learning how you run the operation here.

    Thanks.

    Thank you, Mr. Webber.

    Are there any other comments?

    Mr. Fergus.

    I would like to make another proposal, Madam Chair. I hope this is still consistent with the idea of Mr. Green's motion and the proposed amendment. In addition to the foundation and all the past chairs of the committee, can we include the Comptroller General and the Auditor General among those to be invited? We did that at the orientation sessions we had a few months ago, and I think it would be a good idea to do it again.

    I think he's quite right. I'm unclear about the timing. I know the presentation was fairly fulsome. It may need to be broken up into two days, but that is right in keeping with the spirit of our past business, if I recall.

    Thank you for the intervention, Mr. Fergus. It's Professor Fergus, and he is looking very professorial, for the record, Madam Chair.

    Thank you very much.

    Are there any other comments?

    Mr. Berthold.

    Mr. Berthold, you are muted.

    Thank you, Madam Chair. There are far too many buttons you have to press to speak in French and then listen in English afterwards.

    I would just like to say that it has been a long time since we last met with the Auditor General and the Comptroller General of Canada. Immediately following my comment, I'm going to move a motion to invite the Auditor General to appear next week to report on the status of reports, deadlines and what has happened since her appointment in June. It is important that we receive her promptly so that we can plan for all of our future work.

    I support Mr. Green's motion to have an orientation session where we would have past chairs of the committee and people from the foundation. However, we should not spend our next six meetings doing training; we need to limit ourselves. It is also our responsibility to seek training to serve on this committee.

    So I would keep the first draft of Mr. Green's motion, which is to invite past chairs of the committee and the Canadian Audit and Accountability Foundation to provide training.

    As for the Auditor General and the Comptroller General, we have a lot of questions for them. I would exclude them from the motion, if Mr. Green agrees, but then I would bring forward another motion to have the new Auditor General come here.

    Thank you very much, Mr. Berthold.

    I believe that we can entertain that motion, or you can at least give us notice of that motion, to invite the Auditor General and the comptroller. That would be something that we deal with after this, after Mr. Green's motion.

    I did see Mr. Lawrence's hand up.

    Mr. Lawrence.

    Briefly, I support going forward with Deputy Green's motion, just as a singular. Then we can look at Mr. Berthold's motion with respect to the Auditor General.

    Is everybody clear on what we are voting on?

    I would love to hear from Mr. Green.

    Madam Chair, I think he had accepted two friendly amendments to his motion. I don't know whether it's one or two. Perhaps Mr. Green could clarify that.

    Just as a point of information, perhaps the IT people can make the following clear.

    Mr. Berthold, if you have the latest version of Zoom that the House has encouraged us to use, you don't need to signal when you want to speak in French. With this new version, you can use the floor channel and it will work. It wasn't possible with the version we were using in May, but it is possible with the new version. This remains to be confirmed with the information technology people.

    Thank you.

     Thank you very much, Mr. Fergus, for that clarification.

    Mr. Green, Mr. Fergus has asked for clarification, I believe, to the two friendly amendments that were made and we've now had one of our members suggest that we separate out the second friendly amendment into a separate motion that he'd be willing to make.

    If I recall—and notwithstanding that there's no such thing as friendly amendments, as I'm sure the clerk would remind us—the collaborative spirit of this conversation has landed us in a place where in my motion we are inviting back the past chairs, inclusive of Mr. Allison, Mr. Christopherson, Mr. Sorenson, and Mr. Murphy, and that we are also going to invite back the Canadian Audit & Accountability Foundation, as we had done in an orientation in the previous meetings. Full stop, and then I'll leave the rest to my good friend, Mr. Berthold.

     Are we ready for the question?

    All those in favour?

    (Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

    The Chair: Mr. Berthold.

    Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

    I sent the motion to the clerk earlier this morning. She will be able to forward a copy to you.

     This is a fairly simple motion, which reads as follows:

     Mr. Longfield.

    Thanks. I had an email coming in, so I couldn't raise my hand on the right-hand part of my screen.

    I think if we did the training first, then we would know how to deal with Auditor General questions. To get the process of how we function as a committee as a first order of business, I agree we need to get the Auditor General in, especially in her new role. I know the clock is ticking because in November we're going to have the public accounts coming at us. There is going to be a fairly heavy workload thrown at us in November, I'm guessing.

    I would say, let's try to get our committee processes and procedures and reflections done first, and then get the Auditor General in once we've had our training on how to function as a committee.

     Is there any other discussion?

    Mr. Fergus.

    I would like to add something, and despite my friend Mr. Green's statement, I hope that it will be considered as a friendly amendment.

    I don't want to change anything in Mr. Berthold's motion, since I agree with him that the Auditor General and the Comptroller General should appear before the committee as soon as possible. I would like to add, however, that we should first have some training from the other guests before inviting these witnesses to come and present the statement of accounts and audits at the next meeting.

    Mr. Berthold, I don't remember if you were a member of the committee before the prorogation. We received very detailed training on how to read the statement of accounts, the right questions to ask and the questions to avoid. I found it very useful. The committee analyst is waving; he may have an update on this.

    I support your motion, Mr. Berthold. My proposal does not constitute a dilatory motion. I simply want us to receive training first, so that we can then ask questions.

     Thank you, Mr. Fergus.

    I would turn it over to Mr. Theckedath.

     Thank you, Madam Chair.

    Good morning, everybody.

    I'm Dillan Theckedath. Mr. Leonard and I are the two analysts assigned to the committee.

    I'd like to say something about the steps to follow when it comes to inviting the Auditor General and the people who work in the public accounts area. When you're doing a study on public accounts, normally the...

     One moment.

    I have a point of order.

     I think we're having troubles.

    Mr. Lloyd Longfield: Yes.

    The Chair: We have both the French and the English at the same time talking over one another.

    I'll speak in English for technical reasons right now.

    When we have a meeting of the public accounts committee, it has been the practice in recent years to have it divided into two one-hour sessions. During first hour, in addition to staff from the OAG who provide an audit opinion of the public accounts, we also include the people at the Office of the Comptroller General who help prepare them.

    We have one in camera session, and then we have one public session in which we study the public accounts, ask questions, etc.

    One way, perhaps, in which to accommodate the volonté of the committee would be to have a session with the past chairs, the Canadian Audit & Accountability Foundation and, if possible, the Auditor General of Canada, Ms. Hogan.

    Then when we study the public accounts in the next meeting, it can be assured that both the OAG, as well as the staff, including the comptroller general, will be there for the first half of the in camera session.

    I just wanted to help provide some background for the committee.

    Thank you very much.

    Thank you very much, Dillan.

    I see Mr. Green.

    Go ahead.

    Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

    I know that in short order, as Mr. Longfield referenced, it's likely that we're going to get to a point where we'll be meeting twice a week, based on the workload.

    As a thought for the committee, given that we haven't met for quite some time now, if it makes sense or if it is both considered urgent and important, perhaps in the week that we do our orientation we can book a second meeting to deal with the business at hand in the event that it might take us longer than we might have in one sitting to get it all done.

     Thank you very much, Mr. Green.

    I am going to go to Madam Clerk because I know they're working with the schedule for committees and the House's ability or capacity to hold a certain number of minutes.

    Madam Clerk, would you speak to Mr. Green?

    I was informed this morning that the committees will be meeting once a week for the next two weeks, and that the public accounts committee is scheduled to meet on Thursday morning from 11 to 1 both next week and the following week. We would only have one meeting a week for those two weeks.

    If you want to have an orientation session the first week and then a session with the Auditor General's office the second week, that's something the committee could do.

     Thank you, Madam Clerk.

    Mr. Berthold, go ahead.

    I have no objection to an orientation session.

    In my motion, instead of talking about Thursday, October 22, we could say October 22, which is next week, or October 29, which is the following week. That would give the clerk some latitude in organizing the meetings if, for example, some guests were not available on Thursday of next week. It would also give them some latitude.

    If we can't hold the training session before the week of October 29, we could still have the Auditor General come in next week and ask her questions. However, I prefer that we have the orientation session next week.

    If everyone agrees, I will amend my motion to say “at its meeting on Thursday, October 22, 2020, or Thursday, October 29, 2020”. So the clerk will be able to schedule the orientation session at either of those two meetings, depending on people's availability.

     Thank you very much, Mr. Berthold.

    Are there any other comments to be made? If not, I will assume that we are ready for the question.

    All those in favour of Mr. Berthold's motion?

    (Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    Is there any other future business that the committee wishes to discuss at this time? If not, I would need the consent of the committee to adjourn the meeting.

    Do I have your consent to adjourn?

    Some hon. members: Agreed.

    That was a great job, Madam Chair.

    Thank you very much.

    I wish you all a great day and a wonderful weekend.

    The meeting is adjourned.