Bill C-32 (40th Parliament, 3rd Session) Committee on Nov. 23rd, 2010

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

That proposal is not clear. If I understood correctly, five minutes would be allotted to witnesses; the first round of questions would be of seven minutes; and the second round would last five.

I do not know if this is something I can do now, but I would like to amend the part concerning the five-minute round, i.e., "alternating between opposition parties and government"—you will choose the appropriate wording—so that the order of the second round be the same as the first, and despite the fact that less time will be allotted to the Conservative Party, which forms a minority government in the House.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Madame Lavallée, we have a point of order.

Mr. Del Mastro—

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

I have the floor, Mr. Chair. He can speak afterward. This better be a valid point of order.

It must be a good one.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Madame Lavallée, I'm—

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

It is. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, the point of order—

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

If you have a point of order, Mr. Del Mastro—

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Chair, if I'm not mistaken, I put a motion on the floor to adopt what had been discussed previously. I'm not sure what we're talking about right now. Are we debating the motion? Are we talking about an amendment to the motion? Can we call a vote on the motion? I thought it was fairly well established that this was where the committee was going to go with this. It seemed like we're meandering--

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

The motion was—and you can clarify, Mr. Del Mastro—that we have five-minute opening statements, followed by a seven-minute first round of questioning, and then, if there is a second round, that it be five minutes--

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Following the normal committee procedure for—

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

—which in this case would be Liberal--

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

[Editor's Note: Inaudible]

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Just a second.

Madame Lavallée, un moment.

Okay. So the first round would be Liberal, then Bloc, then Conservative, and then Liberal, NDP, Conservative. Is that what the proposal is?

[An hon. member]

[Inaudible--Editor]

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

No, no. I'm looking for clarification here.

[An hon. member]

On the first one--

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

The first round.

Mr. Del Mastro, what are you proposing? The first round of questions is seven minutes.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

I've actually seen the order work in two different ways at different committees. At the finance committee, for example, it typically would be Liberal, Bloc, Conservative, and NDP. That would be your first round. At the heritage committee, we go straight down the line: Liberal, Bloc, NDP, and Conservative. In the second round, it's Liberal, Bloc, and Conservative. That's how it works.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Is that what you propose?

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

That's what I would propose.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Okay.

Mr. Angus.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

We have a long road ahead of us. I support the seven-minute rounds; I thought that was what we were voting on. I support going with the way it is done at the heritage committee, which is Liberal, Bloc, NDP, and Conservative. For the second round, I think we should go with the standard orders. I don't think that at this point we should start trying to write in new forms. If it goes longer, we'll have more sessions. I know that in an hour's session I won't be getting my second round. I can live with that.

That's the way committees are set up. I don't think we need to create new forms of how committees are set. This is a standard process. Let's vote on the motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

All right.

Just so we're clear, we have five-minute opening rounds, a seven-minute first round of questioning, and a second round of five-minute questioning. The first round will be Liberal, Bloc, NDP, and Conservative. The second round will be Liberal, Bloc, and Conservative. Do we have agreement?

(Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings]

That's carried. Thank you.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

We agree. That's the first time. That's great.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

All right. Wonderful.

We're moving along to the work plan.

Mr. Angus.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Before we get off track completely, I was looking at one of the proposals raised in the last round, about two sessions a week. I would prefer to define the sessions rather than define the length. It might be easier at that point, because there are going to be some days when we are going to be constrained by votes, if we choose afternoon or morning or whatever. If we perhaps, at least to begin with, pick two blocks, we could then pick whether they're two- or three-hour sessions. I'm open to that. I think Monday and Wednesday afternoons will probably put less pressure on us and will give us the time we need.