Bill C-30 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) Committee on Dec. 14th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

The subamendment is defeated. We're back to the amendment.

Go ahead, Mr. Warawa.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Mr. Chairman, I think we want to proceed in the spirit of fairness. The concern we have on this side is that everybody be given an opportunity to ask a question of the witnesses. What's being proposed is of concern, and I think that's been adequately expressed.

Would there be an appetite, as a friendly amendment, to add a phrase at the end “...and that questioning of witnesses would continue until every member has had an opportunity to ask their question”? It would mean that if the meeting is scheduled to end at 11 o'clock, it would not end at 11 o'clock if all members who wanted to ask a question hadn't had an opportunity.

Again, in the spirit of fairness, I would ask that of the mover of the amendment, who I believe is Mr. Cullen. Is that correct, or was it Mr. Bigras?

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

It was Mr. Bigras.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Then my question is to Monsieur Bigras. Would you accept the addition of “that the meeting would not end until every member of the committee who wanted to ask a question would be given an opportunity before the meeting ended” as a friendly amendment?

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Chair, I believe the government has just made its first attempt to delay our work. I do not agree with this. We must set a time limit. I do not think that it would be wise to allow the committee to sit until all members have finished asking their questions. We have work agendas. We must set a time. The hour at which a meeting normally ends is indicated on the agenda we receive. If we do not determine when our deliberations will end, the members of this committee will become completely disorganized.Therefore, I cannot support this amendment, which, though it is well intended, may have significant consequences.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

Go ahead, Mr. Godfrey.

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

I think Mr. Warawa was trying to say that it was every member who hadn't had a chance to ask a question. I would only point out that under all the formulas, we lose. Yes, we lose, depending on how many rounds we have. We have roughly nearly as many members as you, and if you have 15 minutes in the second round and 15 minutes in the third round, we get five minutes in the second round and five minutes in the third round. There is not a reflection of proportionality overall. Certain other parties gain.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

Go ahead, Mr. Jean.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Mr. Godfrey, my proposal, if you look at it, was a proportional situation. Every member would have an equal amount of time, except that in the very first round each member of the parties would receive seven minutes, so each party would receive a two-minute advantage over everyone else. But everyone would have the same amount of questioning time.

You're absolutely correct that we would receive five and you would receive four, but we have five members here who represent five different jurisdictions. But that is the fairest allocation of time for the Liberals. Certainly under Mr. Bigras' suggestion there is not an equal opportunity for you: they would receive twice the time that you would receive; Mr. Cullen would receive four times the amount of time that you would receive.

If you can come up with a compromise that would be better for you, I promise you it would be better for us as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

Mr. Wilson is next.

[Blair Wilson, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

There seems to be a discussion here about regional distribution and the idea that if the Conservatives don't get their questions, some area of Canada isn't going to be represented. We all represent our areas, but we all represent Canada. If you want to talk about some sort of equality, we should talk about gender equality: we have only one woman on the committee, and she's a Liberal. The Conservative government failed to put up a female member to represent her gender, so we've got a lot more things to talk about.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

We're open to any proposal you have that has fair, proportional questioning for each member.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

I will remind members to address their comments through the chair.

We are all representing Canadians. We're representing party positions, to be sure, but we're representing Canadians, not necessarily downtown Toronto or downtown Fort McMurray. Let's try to focus on that.

Mr. Manning.

[Fabian Manning, Conservative, Avalon, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

If we have a two-hour schedule for our meeting, and at the end of that two hours, either a member on this side or a member from the opposite side hasn't had the opportunity to ask a question, I think it would be fair if somewhere along the line we could allocate time, even if it's beyond the regular schedule of the meeting. At least each individual member would have five minutes. Some members will end up with more than that. The bottom line is that at the end of the two hours, there may be only two people at the table—maybe one from the Liberal side and one from our own—who may not have had the opportunity to ask at least one question to any of the witnesses. To me, that seems unfair.

Trying to find a compromise without moving away from the set rules we have in place is where I'm at. I would like to see if we could find some way of compromising but not interfering with the two-hour schedule. At the end of that schedule, if for some reason or another a member of the opposition and a member of the government have not had an opportunity to pose any questions to any witness, I think there should be some way of finding a compromise.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

I think the aim here should be fairness.

I would point out that we are really talking about the subamendment that has been defeated. We're back to the amendment.

Ms. Redman.

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to point out that the second line in English says, “That, at the discretion of the Chair...”. I've sat on other legislative committees, and certainly if, by unanimous consent, we wanted to keep a witness 15 minutes longer so there could be more questioning, that would be possible.

I would think that our chair will deal with us in an even-handed way. I have to say that there should be a presumption of goodwill if we're all trying to make this bill better.

It has been referred to us before second reading. There is much to be discussed. I don't think you can prescribe fairness down to the smallest detail by this procedural event. I would suggest that we take the vote and move on with the full knowledge that by unanimous consent people can ask additional questions. Certainly it's at the discretion of the chair. I have faith that our chair will deal with us in an even-handed manner.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

I will point out that the schedule and duration of meetings is at the discretion of the committee. There is some flexibility there.

Mr. Watson.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Sure, goodwill is presumed, but it's also tested by actions around the table.

Quite frankly, concerning the subamendment—I come back to this—in terms of the allocation of time, the opposition gets 75% of the questioning time. With the standard motion, the routine motion, they get 57% of the time. The proportionality of the committee in terms of membership is that 54% belongs to the opposition. The standard motions were conceived precisely to reflect that kind of fairness. I can't believe the opposition parties would be sitting here, I guess, proving that they don't believe in fairness in the distribution of minutes.

Mr. Chair, if this amendment is actually passed, I think that's a strong statement by opposition members that they don't truly believe in fairness. I don't want to hear at some point in the House, or somewhere else down the line, that in fact they stand for fairness. This approves 75% of the questioning time for 54% of the membership.

I think even the NDP would understand proportional representation a little better than that, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

Mr. Dewar.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I'll pass.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

Okay. Thank you.

Monsieur Bigras.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

I'm also going to give up my turn because there is going to be a vote, but I agree entirely with what Ms. Redman said about the concept of discretion, which is referred to in this amendment and which may allow members who have not spoken to do so. However, Mr. Chair, I will remind you that the use made of the time attributed to each one of the parties is decided upon by members of each respective party, and is their responsibility.

In the past, on the Standing Committee on the Environment, to Mr. Lussier's great disappointment, he has, on occasion, been unable to ask questions because I took up all of the time. This proves that each political party is responsible for managing the time that is allocated to it.

I believe it is time to vote, since at least three members of the committee have asked for this since we started discussion on this issue.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

We are obliged to let the debate collapse, so we're going to have to go to Mr. Jean.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

I would like to know what the party opposite, the Liberal Party, thinks is fair in the circumstances. I would like to hear from them as to what they would propose would be fair in the circumstances.

Are they suggesting that fairness would be that the NDP receive four times the amount of time that they would receive, and that the Bloc would receive twice the amount of time that they would receive to ask questions? Is that what they believe?

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

I'll go to Mr. Warawa, while somebody from the Liberal Party may want to think about responding to that.