HANSARD
DEMOCRATIC PROCESS
Printed and Published by Nova Scotia Hansard Reporting Services
SELECT COMMITTEE ON PARTICIPATION
IN THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS
Committee Membership
Mr. Michel Samson (Chairman)
Hon. Mark Parent (Vice-Chairman)
Mr. Patrick Dunn
Mr. Keith Bain
Ms. Maureen MacDonald (Vice-Chairman)
Mr. Graham Steele
Mr. Charles Parker
Mr. David Wilson (Glace Bay)
Mr. Harold Theriault
[Mr. Wayne Gaudet replaced Mr. Harold Theriault.]
WITNESS
Ms. Paula Romanow, Research and Statistical Officer
[Page 1]
HALIFAX, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2008
SELECT COMMITTEE ON PARTICIPATION
IN THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS
9:00 A.M.
CHAIRMAN
Mr. Michel Samson
MR. CHAIRMAN: Good morning ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the meeting today of the Select Committee on Participation in the Democratic Process.
Before we start, we will introduce the members of the committee who are here today. Mr. Gaudet, if you wish to begin.
[The committee members introduced themselves]
MR. CHAIRMAN: I believe Mr. Parent is unable to make it today and Dave Wilson and Maureen MacDonald, I believe, are unable to join us this morning.
By now you've received information which has been put together by Paula Romanow, our Research and Statistical Officer, which has been forwarded to you, which hopefully you have had a chance to review. I'm certainly happy to hear any of your comments, based on some of the interesting findings regarding voter turnout and also what has been taking place both throughout Canada and even some indication of what has taken place in other jurisdictions around the world.
One of our primary goals this morning is to determine what framework we are going to follow in order to do our public consultation process. I believe, as part of the evolution that has brought us here today, it was a matter of gathering information and some of the data which would be a bit easier for us to digest - which, Paula, I believe you've done a great job in doing that - and, as well, looking at what has been done in other jurisdictions here in Canada, what has worked and what may not have worked, or at least it's too early to tell whether it's having an impact or not.
[Page 2]
The question for us today is to give some direction to Paula and the rest of our staff here as to how we wish to go through the consultation process. Now, Paula, I know you've sent out a handout which, at the top of it, for committee members says, "Some Suggestions for Public Consultation Methods." Paula, I'm wondering if you want to maybe walk us through some of your findings here and then we can have some discussion on any specific parts of it as we move forward in rendering a path as to how we wish to proceed in this matter.
MS. PAULA ROMANOW: So do you want to take just that one document?
MR. CHAIRMAN: Sure. Everyone has the document in question? It looks like this. You all have it. The top heading is, "Select Committee on Participation in the Democratic Process" and then, "Some Suggestions for Public Consultation Methods." Go ahead, Paula.
MS. ROMANOW: It has been interesting, through the course of the summer, gathering the data from other jurisdictions to see what's working and what's not. Before I go into that, I also want to mention that I had a very productive meeting with Democracy 250 a few weeks ago, an excellent meeting. Basically, we talked a lot about what they did and what worked and what didn't, in their regard. Even though their focus was mainly on youth, they did do other - Premiers Hamm and MacLellan did actually go out to service groups and talk to some of the older constituents and whatnot. It's really fascinating to hear what worked and with this federal election coming up, it'll be interesting to see if their work with young people has actually proved useful.
Before I talk specifically about this document, I just wanted to talk a little bit about what some of their findings were, if that's okay, as to what worked and what didn't. Specifically, the things that worked really well with them, in terms of youth - I guess the reason I'm suggesting this is that one of the things I would like is if the committee would give me some direction on whether we need to do any more with young people or whether it could be - because they're giving us full access to all their findings, their surveys, their feedback, everything that they've done, and there's a ton of it, it's terrific. In fact, they've given us all this data to use in our own report, when the time comes to write that, which was really terrific and I want to say thank you to D250, especially to Moira MacLeod because she was excellent, very helpful.
One of the things they found was that the work they did in the universities was very poorly attended. That seems to be the age group where people are first starting to vote. The young adults really didn't seem to respond very well. On the other hand, the older high school students, they just loved it. They did a series of symposia with youth and they had put the mandate out to the different schools throughout the province that they didn't want just their best and brightest kids, they wanted a cross-section of all kids. That's exactly what they got - some high achievers, some low achievers, kids showing up with piercings, ripped jeans,
[Page 3]
people you wouldn't think would be interested in this kind of stuff. The feedback, according to Moira, was just incredible, the kids were desperate to know about this stuff.
In fact, one of the things they found was that the comment they were getting time and time again from the young people was, why aren't we being taught this stuff in school? But they did it in a very engaging and interactive way.
Prior to the symposia they had sort of a mock election campaign leading up to an actual vote about something, an issue that was in the school, and they had people who actually ran for office and that kind of thing. Then they took that forward to the symposia and talked about the process and talked about sort of the whole issue of civic engagement and the political process and all the rest of it.
The kids were really thrilled that they got to speak to Premiers Hamm and MacLellan and that there was all this interaction. The thing that really, really was important was they felt they were being listened to, that they were actually driving the process instead of the adults driving the process. It would be very interesting to see if the kids who are in Grade 11 and Grade 12, through this process - and I know, Chris, we're starting to keep the demographics by age and it will be interesting to see if the turnout is increased over the next few elections, in that demographic. So that was one type of thing they did that really worked well.
What they found, and of course when the Premiers went and talked to the service groups and the typical go and address a Rotary meeting, and that kind of thing, it was more traditional and it was met with a great deal of interest as well. That's one of the options we'll talk about, that I'm going to talk about before the public consultation process.
What they found didn't work very well was holding - as we've talked about before in these meetings - the traditional bank of microphones and just opening it up to the public. They found that those kinds of events didn't get very good turnout and, in fact, that's why they changed and started doing this more directed type of meeting which, granted, was with youth. So they had a very targeted audience, as opposed to us who have the broad gamut.
Her suggestion, from their experience, was that it would be best not to have those kinds of public engagements, like the traditional road show, if you want, but to do a more targeted thing, whether it's inviting members of different groups to come and address the committee, to have round tables, to have panels, with the different groups as we've talked about. So that was my meeting with D250 and I gleaned a lot of very valuable information, which I think will probably save us time in the long run.
Now, looking at this document that I prepared for you, basically what I did is I just went through the different types of ways of getting feedback from people, whether it's public consultation on the broad scale or whether it's more targeted with specific groups. Of course, there's the traditional open, public meeting, which committees typically do travel to a
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community, some by invitation, but generally throw it open to the public to come and address the committee.
I've said before and I'll say it again, my recommendation is that in this particular instance where you're talking about why people don't vote, if people aren't engaged in the voting process they're probably not going to come out to a public meeting to tell you why they're not engaged in the public process.
On the other hand, in the communities where civic engagement is very high, that may be a useful way of doing things to get feedback from them. So that's one way of doing it.
The on-line survey, we've had very little success with the Web site that we have put up, there have been very few responses to that. Again, even with the ad and everything, there just hasn't - am I correct in saying that, Kim? - there just hasn't been very much response to that.
[9:15 a.m.]
Typically when you do on-line surveys or anything on-line, you need to advertise in other media to let people know it's there because when people go on-line and search for stuff, they're usually doing it because they want information, not because they want to give information. If you think of your own experience in using Google to find stuff out, typically it's because you're trying to figure something out and not typically because you're going on-line to fill something out for somebody else.
Again, that one has a bit of an issue, especially with some of the older constituents who may not be comfortable in an on-line environment, wanting to give personal information, or not knowing how, or even though people are having much more success with access to broadband, especially in the rural areas, there are still a lot of people who are just not comfortable doing that, especially in the older population.
Phone surveys are another option, which is similar to the on-line surveys, only done over the phone. But that kind of thing takes a lot of time and a lot of preparation to do, if you're going to do a proper one where you're going to get really useful information.
Focus groups are small groups, targeted groups, whether they're African Nova Scotian or First Nations - you can do it one of two ways. You can either make sort of a random selection of people within that constituency to come in and address - sort of like the Citizens' Forum in B.C., although they did it on a very large scale. But the people who came, the people who were picked to come to be part of the Citizens' Forum - I think there were 150, I can't remember off the top of my head, but it was a fairly large number - they were not asked to volunteer, basically it was like jury duty, if you will, you know, assuming all things being equal and you can, please come and be part of this.
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There was some push-back initially but once people got engaged in the process, it was quite successful. This is part of their Electoral Reform Commission, they had the Citizens' Forum.
Focus groups typically are very small, so focus groups and targeted meetings are not dissimilar. The difference being the targeted meetings are that you would go to, say, one of the monthly meetings of the Confederacy of Mainland Mi'kmaq, like an editorial board kind of thing, you would go and talk to a specific group versus focus groups, where you try to perhaps get a bit of a broader representation of that particular population. For instance, if it was African Nova Scotians, you might get some individuals from the business community, you might just get some individuals, just "regular citizens" or people who are influential in the community, but you try to make a mix of it so that you get a wider series of voices.
The good thing about both of these focus groups and targeted meetings is that you can put them together fairly quickly and you get a lot of information in a very short period of time, perhaps, and people aren't so likely to come into these and grandstand, the way they might be in a more normal public forum, where a lot of people just want to get up and have their rant in front of the microphone. In this group you tend to get less politicking and more genuine - genuine is not the right word - more accurate feedback as to the state of things in that particular community.
Phone-in shows is another one that can be good. However, again, it gives people a chance to rant, and sadly in our province we've lost the main phone-in show that we had when CJCH changed their format, so that's not really a huge option anymore.
Those are the main methods of consultation that we have to choose from. For what it's worth, my recommendation, given the time frame we're dealing with, would be not to do the travelling road shows but to go with the focus groups, targeted meeting format, simply because, like I said, they're quicker to throw together, assuming you can get people's schedules meshing. So that's it. If anybody has any questions, I'd be happy to answer them.
MR. WAYNE GAUDET: What would you recommend - I'm just looking in terms of previous road shows, there always has been an invitation pretty well extended to the open, general public. I like what I'm hearing in terms of targeted groups and focus groups and target audience and so forth, but I think somewhere in there we have to build in an open invitation to the general public, so where would you put that in?
MS. ROMANOW: Oh, absolutely. I think that would be in the focus groups. I'm not saying that you should only do these, a mix of these would probably be the most efficient or the best way to get a lot of information. I'm just again thinking of the time frame if we want to get this consultation done before the Legislature sits, which was the indication at the last meeting. Now that may have changed, given the time frames, I don't know. But if, in fact, that's still the plan, what I would suggest is that we do have an open invitation to members
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of the public to be part of these focus groups because I've said six to 12, but it can be bigger, it just changes the way you manage it, slightly. So that would be my suggestion.
Again, what I would say maybe is you have an open invitation to the African Nova Scotian community or to the First Nations community or to the - if in the discussion today you decide that these are sort of some places where it looks like, you know, the voter turnout is low, perhaps those are districts you want to target. Well, then, you could have an open invitation in that district to come and participate in a focus group, or a series of focus groups, because you don't have to just do one. So I think you could still get the broad public participation in there.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Any other comments? I understand what you're saying, but the question is, can we mix the two approaches together? My concern, I think, is what Mr. Gaudet has raised, that we don't want to be seen that parts of the province are saying, well look, this committee is sitting in Halifax, they're not available for me to be able to reach them. We'll never be able to get away from that argument completely, but I guess the question is, is there a means of us combining the two approaches, of allowing both an open, public forum, yet possibly during the day we would do the focus groups in the afternoon and then at nighttime make it available for anyone who wishes to make a public presentation to us as well?
I'm wondering if that approach would work so that we would pick possibly six or seven locations throughout the province and combine, again, the afternoon being set aside to do the focus groups and the evening part being open to public presentations - which, again, I think we've already talked about - inviting political science professors, inviting campaign managers, presidents of local riding associations, political science teachers in high schools, whoever might want to come forward, leaders from some of the minority groups that you've made reference to, whether they wish to do it in a focus group session or whether they wish to speak to us generally. I'm wondering if we can do both and in that way cover off at least giving as many Nova Scotians the possibility to be able to speak to us and to have themselves heard.
MS. ROMANOW: I think that's an excellent idea, really I think that's a terrific idea because that way if you go into a community, you're guaranteed to get some information. Then it's a bonus if you get members of the general public who actually want to come and speak - I think that's terrific.
I forgot to mention that when I was talking to Mr. Preyra, I asked him - because he is a political scientist and was chair of the department at SMU for a long time - if he would give me recommendations of individuals from the different universities in the province. He gave me a list of names who I have been in contact with and they are interested, depending on the scheduling and everything else, if the committee was interested in doing a round table with them, to talk about sort of the issues around voter turnout on the bigger picture or
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specifically to Nova Scotia. That's another option and most of them are willing to come to Halifax - since most of them are in Halifax given where the universities are - but from Acadia and Cape Breton University and whatnot they indicated that if they knew far enough in advance they would be willing to travel as well, so I think that is an excellent idea, Mr. Chairman, I really do.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Any other comments? Mr. Parker.
MR. CHARLES PARKER: I'm hearing the idea of perhaps inviting people to come out and I guess that's a good idea. We would have to determine who it is we want to invite - whether from Aboriginal groups, the Black community, university professors, or property action groups or whatever. I see there are a couple of names on the list here that are asking actually to meet with us, the Chair of the Election Commission, and the Right To Know Coalition of Nova Scotia. I'm wondering if people like that who want to speak to us, are the ones to invite to one of our public sessions or should they be in a separate meeting with this committee?
There are probably others out there who would be quite interested in meeting with us, I would think, who represent political Parties, constituency associations or other organized groups who have an interest in electoral politics, or democracy in general. I think we need to draw up a list of invitees and get the invitation out to them. It's either here in the city or in the rural communities outside the city, but I think there is merit in getting various groups who have an interest to the table.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I think on that, Mr. Parker, once we have decided the dates and locations of where we are going to be around the province, in our invitation we could give them two options - here's where we are going and would you prefer to present at one of these locations or would you prefer to meet with the committee in Halifax? I'm sure we can schedule some meetings here at this office, everything is already set up to go. We could arrange for people to come in here and I was hoping to deal with the requests of people to appear before us after we finally have made a decision and given some direction to Paula and to the staff as to how we wish to proceed with the public consultation part of it. Mr. Steele.
MR. GRAHAM STEELE: I have a question. I'm interested in hearing the other committee members' views on how the federal election is going to impinge on all this, whether that's an opportunity or an additional challenge? Whether it will get people thinking about voting anyway or whether it means people will be too busy and possibly confused by talking about a provincial vote while municipal and federal elections are going on simultaneously? I can't quite decide in my own mind whether we should just forget about public consultation until after the municipal and federal elections are over or charge ahead with it anyway. I'd be interested in what other people think about that.
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MR. CHAIRMAN: Obviously, that's one of the challenges and it's hard for us to predict in planning this what events may cause it to be a challenge. You're right, I guess the question is, do we want to wait until after October 18th to start the public consultation process or do we wish to start now? It's a valid point and with two elections going on, I think voters will be a bit confused to start out with. Whether that's going to play a role in those who would probably come out to speak with us to start out with, I don't know and it's up to the committee to decide. My concern is always with time frames because any delays mean we are further delayed into having a final report, but again, I think we are all agreed that we want to try to get it done right, so if we have to be delayed then so be it. If there is a better means of us getting feedback from Nova Scotians and suggestions on what changes can be made, I'm more than open to hearing the comments from other members as to whether we proceed at this point with public consultation or do we wait until those two elections are completed.
If we're going to wait until they're completed, I think there is an opportunity for us to, for example, as Mr. Parker pointed out, there are individuals who have asked to appear before the committee, there's no reason why we can't proceed on that front. It might even be an idea for us to put the invitation out to the academic community here in Halifax now and possibly have their presentations done to this committee during that time period so that at least some work is being done between now and October 18th and then if there's a desire to wait and start the public consultation at that point, I see there is opportunity for us to get some of that done. Even the presidents of the provincial Parties - we could invite them to come in and make presentations as well. So some work can be done during that period but again, it's up to the committee as to how you wish to proceed. Mr. Dunn.
[9:30 a.m.]
MR. PATRICK DUNN: It's certainly a valid point Graham brought forth. I'm thinking with a couple of elections on, the elections are on the radar screen, at least some people are engaged with it - it might be an opportune time to go ahead with our committee. Referring to what you had mentioned earlier about meetings in the afternoon with focus or target groups and open to the public in the evening, I like that idea. If you're going somewhere with our time constraints and time is important, if you're going to visit a community or they're going to come meet with you, we want to make good use of our time, so it would be great to get those two groups in on the same day.
I think I would agree that perhaps we should at least look at moving on and meeting with groups while the election is on. With the media, radio, television, papers and everything else, it will be at the forefront, it will be on peoples' minds and it might be an opportune time to engage more people than we would necessarily have if there was no election on the horizon. That's just an opinion.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Bain.
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MR. KEITH BAIN: I guess the opposite of that could work, too. If people are hearing political ads on TV from now until whenever, they'll be so tired of hearing politicians and hearing about voting that they won't participate. So I guess the other side of that is true, as well.
If I could, to Paula - when you mentioned about getting the political science professors together and you did say all of them together as a group, was it, or . . .
MS. ROMANOW: As many as could attend on a given day.
MR. BAIN: I know at CBU there are three political science professors there and the opportunity - if they can't come here, I would like to see the opportunity given that some of the committee members at least could meet with them.
MS. ROMANOW: Sure and, in fact, that would be excellent because you could also get anybody from St. F.X. at the same time perhaps to meet in Antigonish.
MR. BAIN: Yes, if we had maybe a central location more so than metro, too.
MS. ROMANOW: Yes because it is easy enough for somebody from Acadia to nip up, it's only an hour, but to come from that part of the province is going to take a full part of their day and I think that's an excellent idea. The other thing, too, is the individuals at CBU are very up on stuff dealing with First Nations, that's sort of their specialty and that would be really interesting to get their . . .
MR. BAIN: I think Dr. Jim Guy would be just an excellent source . . .
MS. ROMANOW: It would be interesting to hear Sister Nuala Kenny as well on that. First Nations stuff is sort of her bailiwick and that would be interesting to hear her take on it as well.
MR. CHAIRMAN: One of the other interesting items with both the federal and municipal elections - it would be another opportunity as well for us to see the voter turnout in both those contests. So that's an aspect of it as well as to whether all of the work with Democracy 250 and some of the work we've been doing is going to start to show some results or whether there's any impact at this point or not, it's too early to tell. Only after the election will we have that sense. I guess that is the first item we need to decide, do we wish to move forward with public consultation?
I'm reminded as well from staff that it's going to take some time to organize this, so even if we give the go-ahead today, it might just be it won't be before October 18th that we're ready to hit the road on that. I think giving the committee and staff a month to work on that
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is probably not an unreasonable amount of time, but it's probably still even putting them a bit under the gun. Mr. Parker.
MR. PARKER: I just wanted to add my two cents on this timing around the federal election that Graham brought up. I think there are pros and cons of doing it sooner as compared to later, but I'm sort of leaning toward maybe if between now and October 18th we could do some meetings with the requests we have or university professors, or whoever, and then wait until after October 18th. It's just that between now and then it's a busy, busy time with two elections on and people are going to be engaged in those two levels of elections. We may not get the turnout that we might and as we get closer to the voting day in both cases, people are going to say, I'd like to go but I'm tied up with doing this or that in one of those elections. Then we have our own October 2nd Democracy 250 celebration - there's a lot going on. I'm just wondering if it would be better, after the results of those two elections, to then have our public consultations. It doesn't prevent in the meantime for us as a committee to meet with interested groups that are available to come.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I think, Mr. Parker, you raise a good point. I know from my own experience, and I'm assuming most of the people around the table will be called upon to assist in either one or even both of those campaigns coming up, so even members around the table will be asked to assist and attend a number of events in their own areas which will make it that much more difficult.
With what I'm hearing, can I suggest that we instruct the committee to prepare the public consultation period to take place between October 20th and October 31st? That will give us two weeks to do the consultation period, with the target period to finish being November 1st but in the meantime, between now and then, we're going to start sending out invitations to interested parties to see if we can schedule a series of meetings here at the Committees Office between now and October 20th. Is that agreed?
May I also suggest that knowing everyone's tight schedules and everything, that the subcommittee be instructed to meet with staff, hopefully next week, and start going through a list of invitees and that we have that ready to give to staff so that those can be mailed out as soon as possible. So rather than bringing the entire committee together, I would recommend that the subcommittee be given the authority to meet with staff, draw up that list of invitees, and get those invitations out as quickly as possible. Is that agreed?
Let me just make sure who is on the subcommittee. Mr. Bain, I believe you are, myself, and I'm trying to remember if it's Ms. MacDonald or if it's you, Mr. Steele.
MR. BAIN: It's Graham. (Interruptions)
MR. CHAIRMAN: There you go, Mr. Steele. We'll do the military enlistment for you and you are now on the subcommittee. We can meet afterwards, Mr. Bain and Mr. Steele,
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and figure out what's a good day next week for us to meet. I don't think it has to be Thursday, we can probably meet earlier than that so that we give staff as much time as possible. In the meantime, Paula, both yourself and all of our support staff, if you can start putting together a list of interested parties. I would leave out those individuals who have asked to appear before us because they've already indicated that, so we can deal with that after this. We'll decide on a date to meet next week and we can start working on that, so I think we're agreed on that.
Now, as Mr. Parker pointed out, we have received a request from Mr. Tom McInnis, Chair of the Election Commission and Mr. Darce Fardy, no stranger to any of us, from the Right to Know Coalition of Nova Scotia, who wish to make presentations. When do committee members want to start this process? Do we want to start right away or do we want to wait until the invitations go out and then start scheduling people to appear before us for a set number of days? I'm more than open to your suggestions as to whether we do that immediately or whether we wait until we get the responses back from the invitations we send out. What is the wish of the committee? Mr. Bain.
MR. BAIN: We have specific requests from individuals, why don't we meet with them now? That's going to help our timelines for everything else too.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay. That being the case, how quickly do you want to meet? Do you wish to meet again next week, or when would be a good time to meet?
MR. DUNN: Perhaps after we make contact with these individuals. If it's convenient for them to come soon, then the sooner the better.
MR. CHAIRMAN: With that, I'm assuming we'll have to give at least a one- to two-week period after they receive the invitation to either wait for replies or start phoning to see if they wish to reply or if they're going to come. I think what Mr. Bain is pointing out is we have at least two witnesses, both of whom, I'm assuming, will have significant presentations with lots of questions, therefore, I think just with those two we can probably book off - it will take us at least a couple of hours to deal with both of those witnesses. I think what Mr. Bain is suggesting is that we're ready now to at least book one day of hearings, the question being, how quickly does the committee want to start this process? If it's next week, we can look at booking them in starting next Thursday. Is there any conflict with members? Some members are going to be away.
MR. STEELE: Maureen MacDonald and I are both going to be in Whitehorse at the Public Accounts Committee Conference next week and we don't return until Thursday.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Why don't we do this - next week would be September 11th - how about if we say for September 18th? If in that time, Mr. Dunn, we've received any indications from those we've invited of an interest, we'll certainly do our best to try to fit them in as
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well. I think the other thing I'm going to need from the committee is direction on how long we can book on September 18th. Just those two presenters will take up at least two hours, it might even take up a bit more. If we have others who are prepared to meet with us on that date, do we have a consensus that we would book more time both in the morning and possibly after lunch break to come back in the afternoon to finish off some of those presentations? Is that agreeable to the members of the committee? It's agreed.
So our next meeting will be September 18th, probably at the same time, 9:00 a.m., and then depending on the amount of presenters we have, that will determine how long we're going to take. We'll certainly do our best to let committee members know as early as possible how long it's going to be. Keep in mind we may receive some last-minute requests, so in order to try to fit them in we may only be able to give you very short notice as to how long that meeting will be. Right now it's going to be at least two hours, and I guess the point is it may be more in order to do that. In between that the subcommittee will find time to meet and, along with staff, work out a game plan for the invitations that are going to be sent out. Are there any other issues that members wish to discuss prior to us adjourning today? Mr. Dunn.
MR. DUNN: Perhaps before anything happens just to check with the standing committees in case there are committees on that particular morning.
MR. CHAIRMAN: We'll certainly do that. Right now there are no committee meetings Thursday mornings, which is why we've fallen into this specific time period. I guess the other issue as well for both Mr. Dunn and Mr. Bain, you may want to check with Mr. Parent to see if he wishes to send a replacement. If I'm not mistaken, Cabinet is meeting on Thursday mornings, which causes an issue for him, so we'd be more than happy to see a replacement attend on his behalf, should he wish to send a replacement for him during the . . .
MR. BAIN: We spoke about that this morning, we'll get someone to take his place.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Very good. Mr. Parker.
MR. PARKER: The two weeks we've scheduled, then, I think the last two weeks of October, I guess at this point we've got no indication when the Legislature is going to be called back in but per chance if it is, are we still a go on our committee meetings?
MR. CHAIRMAN: I think at this point we've got to commit to a time frame. Hopefully, if the Legislature is in session, our House Leaders will be accommodating to members of the committee. Again, I think one of the issues that we can discuss as well, as we move forward, is whether the entire committee needs to be at these locations, which is something that we've mentioned before, do we need all members to be at a specific location or can we send three members, four members, five members. That's a discussion I think we
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can have as well, and maybe the subcommittee can discuss that as well, so if there are some issues about members, because of their responsibilities in the House, not being able to get away, then we can certainly look at that as well.
Again, thank you to Paula, to all of our staff and our support staff who are here from the other organizations. With that, we are adjourned to meet again on September 18th. Thank you very much.
[The committee adjourned at 9:45 a.m.]
