Agriculture Committee on May 4th, 2006

[Paul Steckle, Liberal, Huron—Bruce, ON]

I think what you will find, Mr. Chair, is that oftentimes you as the chair have to determine who should be the questioner. For instance, if you come to our side, we have to decide, and I'd give you the opportunity to decide who would speak on your behalf for your party. But often we have to limit this, because we don't have the time; we run out of time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerry Ritz]

Yes, very true.

[Paul Steckle, Liberal, Huron—Bruce, ON]

So time is a constraint at times. This works, but we have to rely on our chair to manage that time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerry Ritz]

It's a guideline only. It is a moving target, and Mr. Steckle did an admirable job.

Mr. Bellavance.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

I'm in favour of giving all members the opportunity to question a witness. It's very important to give everyone the right to speak. I know that other committees take a fairly straightforward approach. During the first round of questioning, a representative of the Official Opposition goes first, followed by a representative of the other opposition party, followed by a representative of the government party and lastly, by a member of the fourth party. For the second round of questioning, the exact same order is followed. Party members decide who gets to ask questions.

I trust that you will be as skilful as Mr. Steckle was in terms of keeping track of things. Personally, I've lost track of the speaking order from time to time. Most likely I'll be asking you at times why I haven't had my turn, because I think I've been passed over. I'm in favour of giving everyone an opportunity to speak.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerry Ritz]

Thank you, Mr. Bellavance. You're absolutely right. Of course, if it goes wrong it will be the clerk's fault.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerry Ritz]

Is there any more discussion on this?

Yes, Mr. Miller.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Yes, there is.

I have a letter that I sent to the past chair. I have to apologize to the Bloc members because I didn't get it in both official languages, so I'd have to ask for special permission to distribute it. My concern here--and it goes back to this letter--is the fact that I was sitting over there last time and, being a rookie, quite often I was third or fourth, and that was fine; I accepted that. But what really disappointed me--and I think the opposition this time will find the same thing--is that some of your members will not get a chance to ask a question until some individuals from the Bloc or the NDP are on their second round of questioning. For the sake of democracy, I don't think that is the right way to go. I believe every individual should have a chance to ask his or her questions.

This committee is divided up according to the number of seats that each party elected. I think that was decided on among the four parties. I think the questioning should run on the same example. So I throw that out.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerry Ritz]

Thank you for that, Mr. Miller. I certainly can't disagree with you. It is a moving target. I think Mr. Steckle did a great job in managing our resources.

The one concern I have is that a lot of the witnesses have not been notified ahead of time that they have 10 minutes. They come with a half-hour presentation, and three people each want to take a chunk of that so it takes 40 minutes to do it. I think we need to be very diligent when we invite people before us, and we need to enforce that in the letter of invitation, saying you have 10 minutes maximum; I don't care if five people take two minutes each, but you have 10 minutes. If we enforce that, then we will have fewer problems with our questioning rotation. So we will work from that standpoint to give us more time for questioning.

Also, yesterday, when we struck the international trade committee, they made a point of saying that it would be very helpful if we could get the documentation almost a week ahead, if we could. There are going to be certain instances in which we can't do that, in emergency crisis types of situations, but if we can get their material ahead of time we'll also have a better chance of coming up with a stronger line of questioning, if we have more time to reference it.

I know we're always within time constraints, so we will work diligently from the table to make sure the presenters don't go over their time, so that we have more time to allocate questions. That may alleviate some of that, Mr. Miller.

Mr. Bezan, go ahead, please.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

I want to agree with what you're saying, Mr. Chair. If we limit the time and make sure they know that it's 10 minutes and know that they have to have their stuff in to the clerk ahead of time so that it can be translated--which we ran into problems with quite often last time as well--and if you use your own discretion to make sure everybody has a fair shot at asking questions, I think we will be just fine.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerry Ritz]

Okay. We've taken that direction.

Are there comments from anyone else?

I just want to make sure they got to speak before you got to go twice, Mr. Miller.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Okay. I can live with that.

Just a final comment. I'm going to be holding you to it, Mr. Chairman, that they have no more than 10 minutes. And if they're two minutes late, that comes off their time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerry Ritz]

If they're just getting to the good part and they're at nine minutes and 50 seconds, I might let them go a little over.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Okay.

We need to enforce that. I know--I've sat as chair--it is very hard sometimes to cut somebody off, but I think we have to set that precedent. Word will get around.

Further, Mr. Chairman, I'm still not happy with the other discussion. I'll be voting against that, but that's--

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerry Ritz]

Well, we haven't brought it to a vote yet, but I take your warning. Thank you.

Mr. Steckle actually moved that we follow last time's questioning agenda. Does anyone have concerns with that? It's not actually the one that's here. I read it off the top of our sheet from last time. It's on the record. I can read it again, if you'd like. This is what the motion will read that Mr. Steckle has moved:

By unanimous consent, it was agreed, - That witnesses be given 10 minutes for their opening statement; that, at the discretion of the Chair, during the questioning of witnesses, there be allocated 7 minutes for the first questioner of each party; that before the second round of questioning, other members who have not spoken and who wish to speak may do so for 5 minutes; and that thereafter, 5 minutes be allocated to each subsequent questioner [alternating between Government and Opposition parties].

That actually speaks to Mr. Miller's issue, in that at the discretion of the chair I can move to someone else and/or a point of clarification on another questioner's question. We have that flexibility. I think this is very workable. It was as good as we could get last time. We can certainly go back and revisit this. If you have a concern, bring it back to the planning and priorities committee, the subcommittee, and we can revisit it.

Having read that again--Mr. Steckle has moved it--do we have consensus from the committee to move in that direction?

We have one nay from Mr. Miller. Other than that, everyone is fine with it.

(Motion agreed to)

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerry Ritz]

Thank you.

We will send a copy of the motion to everyone just for verification and clarification.

Having said that, we've come to the end of our agenda here today. As I said before, our meeting times will be 9 to 11 Tuesdays and Thursdays for the spring rotation.

The room will always be this one, or will we rotate again?

[A voice]

It will rotate.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerry Ritz]

Okay. It will be a new adventure every week. The clerk is going to do his best to get us the best room possible every week.

His wife is about to have a baby on Saturday, ladies and gentlemen, so we have one meeting with Jean-François, and then we'll be switching clerks.

We wish you and your wife all the best. I hope everything works out well.

Mr. Atamanenko.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

We will be getting the agenda ahead of time. Is that what normally happens?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerry Ritz]

Yes, you will.

Mr. Bellavance.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Chairman, I'd like to know if another meeting of the steering committee should be scheduled for the purpose of considering future business.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerry Ritz]

Yes. Our next meeting time is allocated for Tuesday morning, so we will have to get together before that time, probably Monday. Some of us will not be here tomorrow. Does Monday afternoon work?

I will have my staffer get back to you with a proposed time and place for Monday afternoon. We all have votes that evening so we should all be here. If we do something at 4 o'clock, does that work?

Mr. Atamanenko, is that fine with you? Okay.

We'll get back to you with a place on that. So we'll have a steering committee meeting at 4 o'clock, and then we'll report back to the main committee here on Tuesday morning of next week.

Mr. Anderson.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

If people have an interest or things they want on the agenda, should they contact you and get them on there as soon as possible?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerry Ritz]

They could certainly do that, yes, and then we'll start to structure our first meetings.

Mr. Miller.