Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you for the presentation.
I think all of us who have constituents or colleagues who have been able to interact with the guides, the staff the library hires to do the tours, will share my experience, which has been that they are a remarkable group of young women and men. It's a credit to the library and to Parliament that we're able to offer that high-quality service. Visitors I've had a chance to talk to are consistently impressed with the people they meet, and you can pass that on to your colleagues.
As we were discussing, at this time of year we all have school groups. I met one yesterday from a village called Cap-Pelé in my riding in New Brunswick. A bunch of grade 8 kids were here. It's a very busy time of year, and that's probably a function of why booking these tours and so on has to be done so far in advance. As Bardish said, because the Centre Block will likely be closing, the pressure has probably increased the demand on the services.
I like your idea in your presentation of extending the hours, simply because I have the anecdotal impression that a lot of groups would accept to come at a later time of the day or earlier in the day if they could get access. With the restrictions in the West Block that colleagues have talked about, I think that's going to be even more important.
As we see what it looks like after a year of operation, I guess you'd have to come back to this table. The funding issue is always of concern, but I think we should keep a very alert sense to the pressure in demand that's going to come and look at whether it's possible to extend the hours even further than what you're planning or to have additional staff during some of those extended hours.
I think we miss opportunities sometimes, and it's nobody's fault. It's a reality of Parliament's sitting late in the evenings, the security context. I think we should look for maximum opportunities to increase the access as we gain a sense of the first year of the new operation in the West Block, for example. This is a suggestion.