I ran into Liberal MP Mario Silva after Question Period today and asked him about his plans for the fall sitting.
Q: How was your summer?
A: It was good!
Q: What did you end up doing?
A: I had a few things – one is that I had obviously a lot of events to go to in the riding, and some meetings we had with constituents. I also went with my partner and my parents to my graduation at Oxford – I finished my Masters in International Law. I came back, and then I had bunion surgery, so I had my leg up most of August.
Q: What’s on your agenda for the fall?
A: We have a very busy agenda. I’m also working on a few things that are taking up a lot of my time, which is chairing up the inquiry that’s going to be taking place on anti-Semitism. We’ll have an important inquiry coming up, and it’s an important panel coming up. In addition to that, we also have committees – there’s Human Rights subcommittee and Trade committee, which are taking a lot of my time.
Q: The inquiry on anti-Semitism – I saw a few releases over the summer where you’d extended the deadline for submissions. Was this because you were getting a lot and you wanted more to come, or you weren’t getting very many?
A: We had gotten quite a few – we wanted more from different regions, as we wanted to make sure all the regions were represented. We want to make sure that was the case, and we have very large submissions, and we’re very happy with that. We’re going through them now, and figuring out which ones we’re going to be calling as witnesses in the fall.