Evidence of meeting #1 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A recording is available from Parliament.
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
I move:
That the clerk of the committee be authorized to distribute documents to members of the committee only when the documents are available in both official languages and that witnesses be advised accordingly.
On travel, accommodation and living expenses for witnesses, I move:
That, if requested, reasonable travel, accommodation and living expenses be reimbursed to witnesses not exceeding two (2) representatives per organization; provided that, in exceptional circumstances, payment for more representatives be made at the discretion of the Chair.
On access to in camera meetings, I move:
That, unless otherwise ordered, each committee member be allowed to have one staff member at an in camera meeting and that one additional person from each House officer’s office be allowed to be present.
On transcripts of in camera meetings, I move:
That one copy of the transcript of each in camera meeting be kept in the committee clerk’s office for consultation by members of the committee or by their staff.
On notice of motion, I move:
That a forty-eight (48) hours notice, interpreted as two (2) nights, shall be required for any substantive motion to be considered by the committee, unless the substantive motion relates directly to business then under consideration, provided that (1) the notice be filed with the clerk of the committee no later than 4:00 p.m. from Monday to Friday; that (2) the motion be distributed to members in both official languages by the clerk on the same day the said notice was transmitted if it was received no later than the deadline hour; and that (3) notices received after the deadline hour or on non-business days be deemed to have been received during the next business day and that when the committee is travelling on official business, no substantive motions may be moved.
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
Okay, are we in favour of the motions moved by Mr. Turnbull?
(Motions agreed to)
The motions are carried.
Okay, we'll move back to the two sections. Let's move back to the first one. It's on the time for opening remarks and the questioning of witnesses.
I believe we have Mr. Therrien and then Ms. Vecchio on the speakers list.
Go ahead, Mr. Therrien.
3:50 p.m.
Bloc
3:50 p.m.
Bloc
Alain Therrien Bloc La Prairie, QC
Very good.
I understand what she's trying to do, that is, ensure the Bloc Québécois and NDP don't miss out on their speaking time in the second round, which tends to happen because we often don't make it to the end of the second round.
Naturally, I agree with moving the Bloc Québécois and the NDP farther up the list for the second round, to make sure we both get an opportunity to speak. That said, I believe the Standing Committee on Health found a way to guarantee it gets all the way through the second round. I wonder whether it wouldn't be a good idea to just tighten up the second round so that the NDP and the Bloc Québécois are each guaranteed a turn to speak. That's an option. I know other committees have done it.
Basically, I agree with Ms. Blaney, but this is something I wondered about.
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
I guess that's a question for me. I would love to guarantee that the Bloc and the NDP would get their time to speak in the second round, but I know that Ms. Blaney—
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
On a point of order, Madam Chair, the translation on the English channel is in French.
3:55 p.m.
The Clerk
Madam Chair, we'll look into it to see what the issue is. If you could just suspend for a couple of minutes, we'll try to figure out what the problem is.
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
Omar Alghabra Liberal Mississauga Centre, ON
I think it's fine now. I don't hear the translators anymore.
3:55 p.m.
The Clerk
Okay. We can proceed.
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
I would love to guarantee that the NDP and the Bloc get their time in the second round each and every time we have witnesses, but there's an issue, and we've seen it happen. For the most part, when we had extended, longer open meetings, I was able to do that and I obviously want to be able to do that always, but when we have the regular three-hour time slot for a committee meeting, it's a little bit more challenging to be able to always guarantee it, unless we extend the time for our meeting that day, because technical difficulties can arise. Things can happen.
I understand why Ms. Blaney has raised this issue—
3:55 p.m.
Bloc
Alain Therrien Bloc La Prairie, QC
In that case, we support Ms. Blaney's suggestion to change the order of speakers in the second round—if possible, obviously—to better the Bloc Québécois's and the NDP's chances of being able to speak a second time to address each witness.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
September 28th, 2020 / 3:55 p.m.
Conservative
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK
Thank you.
Quickly, colleagues, just as way of background, I'm back on PROC. I was previously on PROC for nine years when I was parliamentary secretary to the government House leader when the Conservatives were in power, but for the past five years I have been the chairman of government operations and estimates. I put that in context by saying that during my tenure as chair, we had the same questions come up on a fairly frequent basis. On many occasions the Bloc and the NDP were prevented from asking questions simply because we ran out of time.
What I did—and it was a unilateral and very arbitrary decision that I made—was that on many occasions, I reduced the amount of time in the first and second rounds, which would allow the Bloc and the NDP to ask questions. As an example, if we had one hour of witnesses and the two witnesses presenting were giving 10-minute opening addresses, that would leave 40 minutes for Q and A. I would arbitrarily reduce the first round to five minutes and the second to four minutes, and that would leave two minutes each for the Bloc and the NDP at the end. That worked out very well, but I must say it was not guaranteed. It was just the approach that I took to try to ensure fairness so that my Bloc and NDP colleagues would have ample opportunity to ask questions.
From time to time, there was something else I did in order to allow more time for questions. If we had a government representative, whether a minister or a public service officer who was giving opening comments, I would ask concurrence from the committee members that we would not have those opening statements given verbally but that those opening statements would be delivered. I would ask the committee to allow them to be appended to the minutes of the meeting as if read. That allowed even more time for questions.
My point, Madam Chair, is that at the discretion of the chair, there are many options available if in fact your overriding desire is to allow both the Bloc and the NDP to have questions. I fully support that. That is how I operated when I was a chair.
Monsieur Therrien and Madame Blaney, I'm not sure if there's any way, unless we have unanimous consent, to guarantee those speaking slots. A bit of a leap of faith is required in this committee and in other committees. If both Bloc and NDP members trust the discretion of the chair to do everything in his or her power to ensure that the third and fourth parties in the House have an opportunity to ask questions, that may be the best we can get to.
I would certainly support you, Madam Chair, if in fact you used your discretionary powers to try to ensure that the NDP and the Bloc are not overlooked and are not prevented from asking questions.
4 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
Thank you, Mr. Lukiwski. I really appreciate the experience you bring to this committee. I got to sit across from you in some meetings of PROC when you subbed in two parliaments ago.
Thank you for that suggestion. I think it is great. Of course I do wish to allow proper chances for questioning by all parties. I like your idea of being able to shorten the times. We have had to do that in the past when, on some rounds, I asked for consent from the members to either shorten the opening remarks or to shorten some of the other parties' time that was allocated so that there would be enough time at the end to allow for questions from the Bloc and from the NDP.
There are a couple more suggestions, and then maybe we can get to a solution on this issue.
Go ahead, Mr. Gerretsen.
4 p.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I really like what I just heard, to be completely honest. If you look at the total number of minutes that are in here for questions, there are 49 minutes. With a 10-minute introductory statement, that is just under an hour, at 59 minutes.
I would definitely support shortening the opening statements. My personal opinion is that if you can't get your point across in six minutes, I don't know how much more you're going to be able to get across in an additional four minutes. To be honest, I'm skeptical about moving the time slots around. I'm not 100% certain that this is the best way to go about doing it. I really do think that if we can limit and even reduce the amount of time for the opening statements to, let's say, six minutes, it would be a much better way to go about it.
I'm interested in hearing what others have to say, but as it stands right now, I really like the idea of shortening the opening statements by the witnesses.
4 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
What would you do with that extra time? Would you be tacking it on somewhere, or do you think it would guarantee our getting to the end?
4 p.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
It's in an attempt to guarantee getting to the end. That's why I would do it that way. I mean, right now it's at 59 minutes, so you literally have no opportunity to be off by even a little bit.
There's another thing I would really encourage you to do as the chair, Madam Chair, and I know you were really good about it in the last committee. I'll give credit where credit is due. I liked what Marilyn Gladu did as chair when I subbed in once. She was chair a number of years ago on the status of women committee, and she was really good. As soon as it got to the 10-minute mark, she would say, “Okay, you're done. Thank you.” Then she'd go to the next person.
You might think you're being rude, but the truth is that if you treat every single witness in exactly the same way, then you can rely on that fact and you can say, “Sorry. I treat everybody like this. It's not unique. I'm not doing it for a Conservative or Liberal witness”, or something like that.
If we can get to a place where that happens—
