SSIT Committee Meeting

SUB-COMMITTEE ON THE SITTINGS OF THE HOUSE OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON PROCEDURE AND HOUSE AFFAIRS

SOUS-COMITÉ DES SÉANCES DE LA CHAMBRE DU COMITÉ PERMANENT DE LA PROCÉDURE ET DES AFFAIRES DE LA CHAMBRE

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, November 20, 1997

• 0937

[Translation]

The Chairman (Mr. Bob Kilger (Stormont—Dundas, Lib.)): First of all, I'd like to apologize for the delay. Even in the absence of one of our colleagues from another political party, I propose that we begin our meeting to hear our witnesses, the Clerk of the House, Mr. Marleau, and Mr. Montpetit. I think that at the start of a Parliament, that's important.

[English]

I think that during the course of the summer the House leaders had occasion to discuss other matters relative to the workings of the House, and I would submit personally that I think they made some great strides, some great progress in making the institution more effective in its daily workings. I think that's reflected particularly in two areas, one of which is question period, when we see more members having the ability to ask questions and holding the government ever more accountable. On the other hand, House leaders are breaking new ground in arriving at a schedule laid out in advance, which gives each member—in particular, the critics—more time to prepare. I think it makes us all more effective and more efficient as legislators.

It's in that spirit I want to enter this discussion, and I hope in the next few weeks we'll have an opportunity to explore some avenues that could be of interest to us and make us more effective and more efficient as legislators. I think we should continue to strive to achieve a better balance between our legislative responsibilities and our constituency responsibilities in trying to be more accessible to those constituents.

In that spirit I open this subcommittee meeting, and I ask our witnesses to please begin our discussions with a presentation.

Mr. Marleau, please.

Mr. Robert Marleau (Clerk of the House of Commons): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's a pleasure for me to be here again and provide whatever assistance I can to your deliberations. I have no prepared statement as such, just some opening remarks, if you'll allow that.

I think the paper that has been prepared as usual by Mr. Robertson is very comprehensive in some of the comparisons and what's going on in other legislatures, so I don't propose to comment on those unless you have specific questions.

• 0940

What I would like to do is give you a quick Canadian context, an historical overview of how we got to where we are. I think that may be part of the parliamentary cultural issues you're also addressing.

By way of opening, I'd like to remind you that prior to the turn of the century it was frequent for the House to sit on Saturdays as well. Members of Parliament in that era came to Ottawa by train, usually for four or five months. They were here just for that. They didn't move their families, or couldn't afford to move their families. Therefore, they sat well into the evening and often on Saturdays.

The culture was that business began around two o'clock in the afternoon, because the ministers were often required much more in those days to attend the full debates. They tended to ministerial duties in the morning and spent the rest of the day and the evening involved in the proceedings of the House in one way or another.

Hence, in 1982, when the Lefebvre committee presented the unanimous report to the House, the tradition of night sittings was in fact addressed and eliminated. I remember Mr. Pinard, the government House leader, supported by then opposition House leader Erik Nielsen, talking at length about the difficulties of parliamentary life in terms of personal life and juggling family duties in the evening. There was also the ongoing debate about whether you move your family or you leave your family in the riding. The intent of eliminating the night sittings and moving to a morning sitting was in fact to allow members to live a more “normal” life.

We've evolved now to the calendar, as well as the change in sittings from 1982. Originally the calendar had about 175 sitting days. We're down to an average of about 130 or 132 with the breaks or adjournments that have been fitted into the calendar. Ostensibly at the time it was also to provide better planning, not just of parliamentary business but also of constituency business, so that members could make commitments well in advance rather than constantly being pulled back and forth between the riding and the sittings of the House.

I would like to add, from that perspective against this Parliament's in terms of the cultural change—I think the numbers are a little closer in this Parliament—if we take the example of the finance committee's pre-budget consultations, there's probably going to be more pressure in this Parliament to use those adjournment periods for either committee travel or parliamentary delegations, as windows where the absent members from the House do not impact on the results of any vote in the chamber on both sides of the House.

In that sense it could well be that in this Parliament the traditional weeks of adjournment will take on a different flavour of parliamentary business rather than constituency business. I would underline that if you did opt for a four-day sitting week, a return to a longer sitting day would probably clash with many members' views of the reason for the change of 1982, that sitting in the evening would only add to the complexity of family and personal life.

We have done four scenarios, which are options of eliminating a Monday or a Friday. All of them are premised on two things: trying to achieve the same number of sitting hours over the calendar year; and assuming that the time lost in eliminating any particular day, Monday or Friday, for question period, for members' statements, and for private members' business would be made up.

I spare you the details of those scenarios. I can make them available to you and speak to them as you ask questions.

I don't know if my colleague has anything he wants to add.

• 0945

The Chairman: Are there any questions in the deliberations?

[Translation]

Mr. Bergeron.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron (Verchères, BQ): Perhaps we could ask Mr. Marleau to briefly describe the four scenarios so that we can have some idea of them before we put our questions.

The Chairman: Mr. Marleau.

Mr. Robert Marleau: I can summarize, and I would ask the clerk to distribute this.

The current calendar provides for 35.5 hours of work a week, 23.5 of which are earmarked for government orders, five for private members' business, about an hour and a quarter for members' statements, and three hours and three quarters for question period.

In scenario 2(a), which you have before you, you can make a quick comparison. Under 2(a), which eliminates the Friday sitting, there is the loss of one hour under private members' business and we compensated for that through oral questions and members' statements. There is also a net loss under government orders.

The scenario that most closely resembles that is 2(b). It's just the reverse with Monday and Friday.

Scenario 3(a) most closely resembles the current number of sitting hours, since there is only a one half-hour loss. The government would lose a little less than half an hour, and private members' business would be fully satisfied since we would have two hours set aside for private members' business on Monday from 10 to 11 and 11 to 12. The same would apply to question period. Three (b) is a variation on the Monday and Friday alternative.

If you look at the bottom of the page under the paragraph

[English]

comparison of sitting weeks, a proposed 3(a), in every case we've added two sitting weeks, which will be picked up in January, since the January break is the lengthiest break we have in order to make up the total amount of hours available to the House.

The present calendar has 958 hours over 27 weeks. Proposal 3(a) would add two sitting weeks and indeed a net increase in the number of hours available from 958 to 1,015.

In terms of total numbers of sitting days, each of the scenarios at the bottom of the calendar that we also did to represent the impact on the parliamentary calendar.... On average we would go from 132 sitting days to 113 or 114 sitting days, but with 114 sitting days you could still have a net increase of hours, by adding those two weeks, to 1,015 hours.

The Chairman: If I may ask an initial question of the clerk, have there ever been any formulas where the Friday work was different from the present format we have?

Mr. Robert Marleau: Yes, there used to be more time available on Friday. It used to go to 4 p.m., and it's peeled back now. It used to be 2 p.m., and now it's 2.30 p.m., because in the past we didn't have a late show on a Friday, and that has been added in the recent past.

Mr. Camille Montpetit (Clerk Assistant (Procedural Services) House of Commons): It's not that the late show has been added, but—

Mr. Robert Marleau: The private members' hour.

Mr. Camille Montpetit: —that the lunch break was eliminated.

Mr. Robert Marleau: That was eliminated. There used to a lunch break of one hour on a Friday, that's right.

Also, related to your question, it was tried following the 1982 calendar change for an experimental period of stacking three private members' hours on a Wednesday. In other words, the House met on a Wednesday—I'm sure Bill remembers that—for members' statements, question period, and then three private members' hours, and the late show.

• 0950

That was a net loss in private member time at the time, but it was tried as an experiment, and it was changed, because gradually interest in private members' hours on Wednesday afternoon waned, and then members didn't come. It went into straight competition with committee sittings: Wednesday afternoon is a strong committee sitting day. As a consequence, the interest on the part of private members in private members' business went down.

At the time there was talk of stacking them on a Friday as well, but it was felt that a return to a more distributed private members' hour across the week was preferred.

[Translation]

The Chairman: Mr. Bergeron.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Of course, according to the information we were able to glean about this in the past few days, there was an attempt to go from five to four sitting days in 1982, an attempt that was suspended the following year. Could you indicate why this experience was not more conclusive?

Mr. Robert Marleau: There was no genuine attempt, but there was a great deal of debate. Four days would have been earmarked for government orders and the fifth day for private members' business. This is an attempt that was abandoned because there was a drop in participation by members in private members' business on Wednesday, the day that was set aside for that.

There was a long debate at the Lefebvre Committee. I was the clerk of that committee at the time and I remember that discussion very well, which was about whether the House could have a day off every Friday or every Monday. The government leader in the House had some concerns about his parliamentary agency, and the Official Opposition at the time was afraid of how the public and the media would perceive having members of Parliament take every Friday off.

However, certain factors have arisen since then which may to some extent reassure the government House leader, for example, the practice of deferred division, which is not completely anchored in our culture but which is starting to take root, as well as better management of the agenda, which, for at least the past two or three Parliaments, has been announced further in advance than was the case in the past. There are also fewer changes to the daily program. In the days when Parliaments sat at night, with a recess from 6 P.M. to 8 P.M., a bill was often tabled in the afternoon and a second one in the evening, and there wasn't much advance notice about what would happen between 8 P.M. and 10 P.M.

Therefore, I think the management of the agenda has evolved, which, at least for a trial period, should serve to reassure government leaders about the government's agenda.

[English]

The Chairman: Mr. White.

Mr. Randy White (Langley—Abbotsford, Ref.): I'm glad we're doing this, because I think we have to go beyond what exists, and maybe what has existed in the past, and look at some other concepts for the calendar.

Bob, you mentioned something before about the fact that ministers' and members' attention to debates in the House had changed. I think a part of this whole discussion about calendar also involves the number of members in the House going to debates. On some days it's really far too low. You might get five or six people in the House, although there's even a quorum for twenty, which I think is low. So I think there's been less interest in House affairs in our council chambers.

I find this calendar here exceptionally good, and it is much better. I know that in the province of British Columbia they don't have a parliamentary calendar. It's just a mess there as far as organization goes, as to when a legislator goes to work. They often even don't know what month.

• 0955

Private members' bills—again, it's kind of an attendance thing as well. It seems to me that private members' bills done on one day like a Friday would be worth looking at. I even think if the attendance is such as it is today that a private members' bills discussion in addition to a Friday, for instance, if we wanted more hours, could be undertaken on Wednesday mornings. Caucuses meet Wednesday mornings, but there's no reason why a member of caucus, if he has a bill that he's debating, can't go and debate the bill. There's not a lot of attendance in the House for that. It's something that could be looked at.

One of the big issues here is the close proximity to the House of Commons. Of course members from Ontario and Quebec have a little better opportunity to get here than those from the east and the west.

It takes me eight to nine hours to get home from here. If I leave Vancouver, for instance, on Monday morning, I don't get here until the close of the day Monday evening. So Monday is a write-off. You really have to come in on a Sunday if you have to be here Monday. Therefore the Mondays and the Fridays are seen to be the difficult times for the travellers. If the case is that you have to be here on a Monday and you leave here on a Friday, you basically have two trips out of the city—around noon, I think, and six o'clock at night.

Those two days on the end are definitely the difficult times. I favour something being done on Friday, because I don't sense there's a whole bunch of interest on the Friday day itself, if you look at question period or attendance in the House. I think something could be done with Fridays.

The late show that is involved in adjournment proceedings I think is a time that could be better utilized in the House of Commons. That's a fairly effective way of getting points across and holding government accountable, but it's at such a late time at the end of the day there seems again to be a lack of interest. Members are gone off doing something else.

I think we should look at the length of a day. I know it's gone up and down over the years. I'm sure many feel that if they're here Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays in particular, they can spend a couple more hours perhaps and make up time during the day. There are lots of options we can look at here, and I think we should pursue every one of them.

Mr. Robert Marleau: May I make a comment, Mr. Chairman, on what Mr. White has said?

I had it in my notes to make a comment about the members who come from the more remote regions of the country. Should the committee decide to proceed with a recommendation, it may impact on which day of the week you'd choose. I think we should do analysis of the business travel flights. I would suspect there are more going west on Friday, as a consequence, than there are on Monday going west. Probably the same sort of thing applies going east in the country, in terms of what the business travel patterns are. It's around these that the airlines eventually craft their schedules, in terms of supply and demand.

The other thing is, let's not forget that many of your members don't have direct airport access and are faced with sixteen- and eighteen-hour drives. In some cases members are faced with seven- or eight-hour flights plus a five- or six-hour drive thereafter. Complicate that with the winter travel in certain regions of the country, not just in B.C. but in northern Quebec, and we find that members probably on average invest more than a full day a week simply in a travel mode. That is a reality of your work life that you have to look at to some degree.

Mr. Pinard was talking about eliminating night sittings to bring back a certain normalcy to parliamentary life. The House over the last fifteen years has given members more resources to do their constituency work and hence has created a large demand in the constituency both for presence and attending to issues within the constituency, yet I have not seen any increase in time for the member to attend to those duties as a consequence.

• 1000

In terms of the balance of what you're doing here and public perceptions as to whether you should be sitting in the chamber x number of hours per week, I think the time a member has to spend getting to Ottawa and getting back to the constituency has to be factored in.

The Chairman: Mr. Adams.

Mr. Peter Adams (Peterborough, Lib.): Am I right in thinking that strictly from a cost point of view there's little advantage to going to a system of doing something special on Fridays, whether private members' business or special questions of ministers? The cost to members is roughly the same wherever they are, so essentially we're talking about staff. If the House of Commons has to be staffed on a Friday, even for some limited objectives, there are few if any savings. Is that reasonably true?

Mr. Robert Marleau: It's reasonably true. We did a rough costing of taking 25 Fridays out of the 120 to 130 sittings you have each year, and getting it down to 102. The total saving, if you did this tomorrow, we costed out to about $250,000 saved. You'll see that it's a very narrow breakdown.

It breaks down to about $90,000 in publication costs, of which 66% is for part-time staff who come in to do Hansard and that kind of stuff. Security overtime—when the House is sitting we have a different security system—would go down by about $35,000, and maybe another $14,000 in operating costs. Food services, assuming the restaurant is closed, would bring in a saving of about $17,500 in staff time, and service in the lobbies would be eliminated for that day. With transportation, the mini-buses would run on a different schedule. Our estimate there is that we'd save about $5,000 in staff and $1,300 in fuel, so there's an added economy there, and even a small contribution to bettering the environment. Messengers and distribution would amount to roughly $2,500, and the benefits package attendant to all those part-time employees represents another $25,000.

We're currently locked into certain collective agreements. If you went to this kind of calendar, over time we could—we're about to go to the table with several of the unions—rearrange that so that there would not necessarily be net losses in staff, as we still have a no-layoff policy, but certainly a reduction over time of more of the part-time staff and more of the overtime costs. For instance, committee clerks sometimes spend long hours on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays finishing one meeting and getting ready for the next one and are allowed overtime. We could schedule that overtime to be taken on Fridays, when it would be a....

A voice:

[Inaudible—Editor].

Mr. Robert Marleau: Exactly. As a consequence, there would be less of a cash pay-out for overtime, and we could do that with various categories of employees.

Mr. Peter Adams: But that assumes closing down. My point is that with even a limited opening, most of those savings disappear.

Mr. Robert Marleau: That depends what you mean by limited opening. If you went to the formula that Quebec City has for its Friday sittings—which is called interpellation—which is simply that a committee report comes to the floor, the minister is forced to attend with some staff, the chair of the committee and opposition members sit across the way and about an hour of exchange is televised on an issue.... It's scheduled well in advance and has limited rules—no points of order, no questions of privilege, no votes and no dilatory tactics.

It's a use of the chamber but is very limited. It probably costs about $50,000 for the day because of the broadcasting and that sort of thing. So you'd still have $175,000 to $200,000 if you had a modified formula. But if you're going to stack five hours of private members' business and have a full-fledged parliamentary debate, then yes, there is no difference.

Mr. Peter Adams: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The Chairman: Mr. Blaikie.

Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg—Transcona, NDP): First of all, I presume we're not trying to decide anything here today. We're just kind of exploring things and we would want to take back to our respective parties our impressions of what other people are thinking.

• 1005

If we're going to do something different on Fridays, I think something along the lines of what was suggested by a committee that I was on a couple of years ago—it was prior to 1993, because I wasn't on any committees from 1993 to 1997—where we would have a special debate or the minister would be available in some kind of committee-of-the-whole session.... I don't think we should do anything for fiscal reasons, and I presume that's not the discussion here. We're trying to figure out how to make Parliament work better. If it costs a little less, great, and if it costs a little more and it makes the place more relevant and our jobs more productive, that's okay too. I just want to get that out of the way.

I think all members would welcome—perhaps not the government in one sense, but maybe so in another—an opportunity for more extensive back and forth on a particular issue or a particular department with the minister. If we did that on a Friday it would eliminate what I take to be one of the government's concerns, which is that they don't really want to have the cabinet there on Friday to answer whatever comes up. Even if only a few cabinet ministers are there, they all have to be briefed on everything that might come up.

If we were going to play around with Fridays, as an opposition member I don't want to give up question period unless something equal or better than it is being offered in terms of an opportunity for opposition members—and backbench government members, for that matter, if they could kind of catch the spirit—to pursue ministers on a particular issue.

You spoke about Quebec. Is it not true that in Quebec and perhaps in some other legislatures they sit some Fridays and not other Fridays?

Mr. Robert Marleau: Yes.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: For instance, you mentioned the weather. I think one of the legislatures—I actually read the paper last night—sits on Fridays in June and December. That's not a weather-related thing, but it's related to the end of the session when things are starting to.... In some provincial legislatures it's called speed-up. We could look at that. We don't have to kill all Fridays or not change at all. So that's another option.

I'll make a radical suggestion in terms of trying to recover time that may be lost. Personally, I'm not crazy about adding a couple of weeks to the calendar—

The Chairman: It's a trade off.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: —and coming back right after the New Year or whatever. I don't know whether that would be six of one and a half dozen of the other. If you're taking away two whole weeks from people in the constituencies in the name of giving them more time to be in their constituency, I'm not sure that isn't just fiddling for the sake of it and not really accomplishing much.

I don't really expect this to be acceptable, but as somebody who was on the Lefebvre committee and who approved of the recommendation at the time that we not have any evening sittings, I'd be prepared to go back to them and to have the House sit in the evening.

• 1010

I think one of the things we need to work on if we want to get more people back into the House is not having everything happening at once. There are something like 26 committees, counting subcommittees, meeting today. It seems to me that at one time there was more division of time so that certain things were....

Committees were always meeting when the House was in session, but the expectation of the Lefebvre committee and the McGrath committee when they recommended the abolition of evening sittings was that the evenings would become a time when people could do committee work and not be neglecting the House.

Now, that never happened. The minute the evening sittings disappeared, so did the committee evening work. It's not to say that some committees don't sit sometimes in the evening, but the rationale for doing away with evening sittings wasn't that everybody could bugger off or go home to their families and do whatever it is they do in the evenings. That was not the rationale. The rationale at that time was that committees could meet in the evening without being in conflict with the House. We felt then the same pressures we feel now, only telescoped into this smaller period of time when everything is going on all at once.

It seems to me one of the things we need to address if we want to look at scheduling is how to stop everything from going on all at once—to some degree, to limit it. Obviously we can't stop it. It has been made even worse by the change in the last Parliament—in my judgment anyway—of getting rid of the lunch-time, because now the House is sitting all the time.

When everything else is going on, the House is always sitting. There used to be a time when you knew the House wasn't sitting and you didn't have to worry about it; you could have lunch meetings. They weren't necessarily committee meetings, because of course we all attend a lot of other kinds of meetings.

It's impossible now. Everything is happening simultaneously, and I think that is part of the problem. I think that is one of the sources of this angst, that the place doesn't work right because people always have too many balls in the air.

That's not a specific recommendation, but I think this is part of the problem that needs to be addressed.

The Chairman: Would you care to comment?

Mr. Robert Marleau: I have a brief comment. I think Mr. Blaikie is right about some of the intentions of the Lefebvre committee.

At the time it was commented both in the report and on the floor of the House that it would allow committees to continue to sit without being interrupted by bells. But it was also stated that it would allow members to work more quietly in their offices at the end of the day, particularly western members, who have a bit of an advantage or disadvantage, depending on the way you want to look at it. Six o'clock Ottawa time is still prime time Vancouver time and allows for transaction of business in a different way.

There's no doubt in my mind, as Mr. Blaikie just said and as Mr. White said a bit, the focus may have gone from the House in part because so much is going on at the same time. It is not unusual during an estimates period on a Tuesday to find five ministers appearing before five different parliamentary committees on estimates. There is a competition that ebbs and flows there, as well. That's the only comment I would make.

The Chairman: Mr. Harvey.

[Translation]

Mr. André Harvey (Chicoutimi, PC): I think that the basic problem with substantive changes is that we want to keep up appearances. The House could sit seven days a week and the public's perception would not be any better, Mr. Chairman. I think we have to show a bit of courage as parliamentarians.

In Bill's riding, and in Mr. White's and in Stéphane's and in your own, Mr. Chairman, there is no one, in my humble opinion, who is calling into question the fact that members of Parliament work hard.

• 1015

In provincial legislatures, at least in Quebec, unless I'm sorely mistaken, Mr. Marleau, they sit between 50 and 55 full days. Compared to what we do here, that's not a lot. And yet they have considerable ministerial duties. They have a whole bunch of ministries and they don't sit for very long. It would be interesting to see the official calendar of the government of Quebec.

Am I correct in saying that it is between 50 and 60 days a year?

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: From October to December, they sit three days a week; in December, five days a week; after that they start over again in mid-March for three days a week until June, and in June it's five days a week.

Mr. André Harvey: So what's the total of that?

Mr. Robert Marleau: In Quebec, they sit for an average of 60 days.

Mr. André Harvey: We have some fear of public reaction. Personally, that doesn't impress me, because I can explain to people in my riding and my region what we do here. We must strike a balance between our ridings, Parliament Hill, our family and friends. If we want to improve the image of the role of a member of Parliament, we already know that we have three full days in Ottawa, work-intensive days. Those are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

In all the discussions we will have in the next few weeks, it would be best if we forgot this dimension that makes us shy away from making changes. Our fellow citizens are intelligent people. They know that the role of a member of Parliament is to remain honest. That is still part of important realities. We have to have a bit of political courage here. Make no mistake. With regard to Fridays, Bill had some interesting suggestions.

We should look at that and perhaps proceed by subject matter. I could give as an example the document by the Canadian bishops, which discusses social infrastructure and says that there are no governments right now that are truly concerned about supporting the most disadvantaged. If we devoted a day or two to listening to ministers explain their views, perhaps the public would follow the debate more closely. I don't have any answers to all this. I think we have to stop imagining that our fellow citizens will appreciate us less if we change the parliamentary calendar. That's not true.

The more we can be in our ridings, the more we will be with them and the better our chances of meeting them and understanding their experience. Personally, I'm here for three full days in Ottawa, four maximum, with a modified schedule on Fridays. I think there are many interesting and progressive scenarios that we could consider. We have to stop being afraid of what our fellow citizens will think. If we think intelligently, they will react intelligently. That's my humble view, Mr. Chairman. We are as open to this as everyone else is. It's not easy to make changes, but we have to do it.

I'm pleased to be here this morning to examine this with my colleagues. The notion of topics that Bill has raised is interesting. Let me point out again: even if we sit seven days a week, we'll not be any smarter and we will not give Canadians the impression of being any more efficient. I'm perfectly comfortable with that. The provincial calendars do not seem as heavy even if the provinces have enormous responsibilities. The members of legislative assemblies are very often in their ridings and they don't give the impression that they work any less hard.

Their days are about one third as long as our days here in Ottawa. They have parliamentary committees, but we have standing committees that meet regularly and occasionally travel across the country. I am comfortable with these changes to the parliamentary calendar. The reaction of my fellow citizens is not the fact that will determine whether I accept or reject certain changes. We will also be talking about this with our caucus.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Harvey.

Mr. Bergeron.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I learned a few things from the first round. So I am going to make a few comments before I am so bold as to ask my first question, only to be cut off afterwards. I will start by making a few comments.

Earlier, Mr. Blaikie was saying that he was hoping that we were not making any decisions at the moment, and I agree with him. The main reason we are here is to look at what was done in the past, not only past practice, but also studies that were done, such as the Lefebvre and McGrath reports.

I think we also met in order to proceed as quickly as possible, because we are facing a number of facts we will have to try to reconcile. The first is that there is a government that has... [Editor's note: technical difficulties]