Government Operations Committee on June 9th, 2011

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Mike Wallace moves the first motion:

That the Committee retain the services of one or more analysts from the Library of Parliament to assist it in its work.

I don't think there's any objection. All those in favour?

(Motion agreed to)

That's done; we have analysts.

[A voice]

And here they are.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Excellent. By some happy coincidence, we just happen to have a couple of analysts in the room.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Welcome, gentlemen. I'm going to let you introduce yourselves when you get settled in.

Some of us have been on the committee for a number of years and already have had the pleasure of meeting the analysts, but perhaps we could have a minute or two on who you are, your background, and what brings you here today.

[Édison Roy-César, Committee Researcher]

Good morning. My name is Édison Roy-César and I am an analyst for the government finance section of the Library of Parliament. Since the last parliamentary session, I have been with the OGGO committee. I have a master's degree in economics. That's my area of expertise.

Now here is my colleague Maxime-Olivier.

[Maxime-Olivier Thibodeau, Committee Researcher]

Good morning, everyone. My name is Maxime-Olivier Thibodeau. I am a lawyer and analyst at the Library of Parliament, also in the government finance section. It will be my pleasure to work with you on the OGGO committee. I have also been with the committee since the last session. We look forward to providing you with all the background information required for your work, impartially and as thoroughly as possible.

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thanks to both of you. Welcome.

I think everyone who has been on committees before knows that especially the nature of government operations and estimates can get quite technical, and we rely heavily on the good work of our analysts to guide us.

The second motion is one that can get a little more controversial or have a little more debate involved; that is, obviously when we have witnesses we have to divide the questioning time amongst the parties in a fair and equitable way so that all parties and in fact all individual members get an opportunity to question the witnesses. I know that there has been some talk amongst the parties already, and I suppose there's a standard that's quite common through most committees, but again, we have the right as a committee to structure it any way we want.

Is there any input on that?

Mike.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Chair, I do have a recommendation, and I think it's actually fairer than what we've had in the past, to be honest with you. I did an analysis of how many seats we have in the House. The Conservatives have 53% of the seats, the NDP has 33%, and the Liberals have 11%. I have no issue with the five- to ten-minute piece for opening statements, so let's make the assumption to make things as simple as possible.

The first round used to be a round of seven minutes in a lot of committees, so I think it's fair to give everybody five. What I recommend is 30-minute rounds, six rounds, and every round exactly the same. If we get through round one, this repeats itself in rounds two and three. It would be five minutes for the Conservatives, five minutes for the NDP, five minutes for the Conservatives, five minutes for the NDP, five minutes for the Conservatives, and five minutes for the Liberals. That's 30 minutes.

If we get through two rounds, that virtually gets everybody covered. Actually, the NDP gets an extra turn and the Liberals get an extra turn. One of us on our side will likely have to miss. If we get to three rounds, then everybody gets covered off on that. It's very simple: five minutes each in that rotation and then it would continue to repeat itself. It would just be one round continuing to repeat itself.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

All right. That's one idea.

John.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

It's traditional--at least it always was in the past--that the first speaker be from one party, the second speaker from the second party, the third from the third party, etc. I would hope that we would preserve that tradition, in which case we'd have either an NDP member or a Conservative first and second, then a Liberal third, and then proceed further. That's the way it's been done on committees that I've been a member of in the past.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Yes. I think what Mike is putting forward, though.... It is true what you say, but also the speaking terms are longer.

The clerk recommended a breakdown that started with 10-minute rounds because we have only three parties now, instead of four. To divide up the first round, he suggested that we should each have 10-minute rounds. I know what Mike's getting at: that more members would have an opportunity to question. Quite often if we had a 10-minute round, one of the parties might break it up, with five minutes for you and five minutes for Kelly, for example, on the same round. So I see where you're coming from on that.

The one observation I'd make about your proposal, though, Mike, is that I've never seen a committee where the government side questioned the witnesses first.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Well, welcome to the new reality.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Given that the government knows everything anyway and has the inside advantage to all questions asked, really it's the opposition that needs to ask questions of the witnesses. That's been the reasoning and the logic, I think, in most committees.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Chair, based on that round that I offered up, the Conservatives get three; the NDP get two; the Liberals get one. That's 50% of the time for us, 33% for the NDP, and 16% for the Liberals, which is actually more than what they have in the House in terms of seat count.

I think it's very fair. I've lived only in a minority Parliament until just recently, so it may have been the tradition that the opposition went first, but I think this is absolutely the fairest system that we have.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Mr. Julian.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Congratulations on your esteemed position.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

I like that word.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

For the new members, my name is Peter Julian. I am the NDP industry critic, and I am here as a substitute, so you will see me from time to time. My riding is Burnaby—New Westminster.

I'm interested in Mr. Wallace's proposal.

But you're absolutely right, Mr. Chair, that the tradition is, particularly at the government operations committee, that the opposition parties begin, and that's something that's gone back, whether it's been minority governments or majority governments, over the last few decades. That's just an overall tradition that is an important parliamentary democratic tradition, which of course Canadians want to see maintained.

As far as the time allocation goes, I think Mr. Wallace is on the right track in terms of the proportionality.

The problem is, though, as you raised, Mr. Chair, that traditionally there's been a longer first round. I think that's what the clerk has suggested as well, particularly when we get into interesting hot issues. That first round is going to be an important one. I think that's something that needs to be brought in. The proposal was, I believe, eight minutes potentially for the first round.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

The clerk actually recommended that the first round be ten minutes.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

If you wouldn't mind, could you just repeat what the clerk recommended initially?

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Sure. We'll add this to the works:

That witnesses be given five to ten minutes to make their opening statement; [and then] ...during the questioning of witnesses there be allocated ten minutes for the first questioner of each party including the responses of the witnesses [in the order New Democratic Party first, Conservative Party second, the Liberal Party third]; and that thereafter, six minutes...be allocated to each party...

In the second round it would be the Conservative Party first, the New Democratic Party, the Conservative Party again, the New Democratic Party, the Conservative Party again, the Liberal Party, and then Conservatives and New Democrats if there is time. That's pretty much what we had last time, except the length of questioning differed.

We have Ron Cannan first and then Mike.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

I just want to clarify that in some of the committees--and it's up to the committee to clarify with the clerk--when we talk about five minutes, that includes the answer from the witness--or does it? I've seen a member take five minutes to ask the question and then a witness take however long. So we need to be clear and concise.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

The chair would have to be a lot tighter then and cut people off at five minutes. If somebody wants to take four minutes and thirty seconds to ask their question and tries to milk their time a little more by then giving the witness four minutes to answer, that's eight and a half minutes. That's not fair to anybody. If we have only five minutes to question a witness and get answers, the chair will have to be really strict about that.

Mike.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Yes, and for those who are new, the five minutes is yours to use. You can use it for a speech if you want to do a five-minute speech. That's up to you. It's your slot.

I just want to point out that I was on both the finance committee and the industry committee, Mr. Chair. Each of those committees had different speaking orders. Particularly on the industry committee, I would say, the Conservatives, who were the government last time, did not get their rounds as other committees did. We were pretty fair on the finance committee, to be honest with you. But on industry, it wasn't quite as fair. Let me just put it that way.

So in a spirit of compromise, which we of course are all in, I still agree with five minutes; I think five minutes is fair. Every individual member then is treated equally, in my view. But instead of having the Conservatives go first, we could let the NDP go first, then the Conservatives, then the NDP, then the Conservatives, then the Liberals, then the Conservatives. The round would change so that instead of us going first we would go last in that 30-minute round. So the NDP would go first, but it would still be five minutes.