The other item is in terms of how many witnesses per block. Again, for political parties, are you fine to have the main five in a two-hour block? In terms of the other tiers of witnesses as well, how many witnesses...? We can also do one-hour sessions, if we can have that flexibility, as well, in what the committee is looking for on that front. We've all been here when the table is full of witnesses, and it can be a struggle. If it is also acceptable, then, to give the clerk that flexibility to, yes, maybe have a two-hour block on political parties, but maybe it's one hour and one hour.... That's fine. Okay. I'm seeing that.
Okay. I think we have some marching orders in terms of what's available. I'm worried about the notion that if we can't get witnesses for this one, we can have witnesses on another motion, which has yet to be passed, because we're also putting the clerk in an unfair position. If it's going to be difficult to start making calls today to get a witness on Tuesday, it's going to be more difficult the closer we get to the weekend and the closer we get to Tuesday.
I will say this again one last time in the hopes that.... I think the easiest witness to get may be the Chief Electoral Officer, but if it's the will of the committee not to hear from him until the fall, that's fine.
Without seeing anything else—and I'm happy to hear more—my interpretation of the will of the committee is that we will attempt to reach out to political parties to have them appear on Tuesday or Thursday. That will be next week's priority of witnesses, and then we will go from there.
I would still appreciate witness lists from committee members because, again, this is very open in terms of (b) and (d). If we can set it, is today at 5 p.m. reasonable...for this week, anyway?
I see worried faces.
Go ahead, Mr. Louis.