Thank you for the opportunity to address that.
For the most part I concur with Mr. Cullen. In fact, if you go back beyond 10 years, I believe committees have typically had seven minutes in the first round. One of the things that surprised me when I was first elected back in 2006 was how quickly the time goes when you're examining witnesses at the table and you're embarking upon a line of questioning. The time goes so quickly. I think those of you who are new here will find that six minutes cuts even more into the key questioning that all parties here would want to engage in.
The other thing is I've been advised by my staff that quite a number of the committees have adopted seven minutes for the first round. They've changed up the order slightly and I have a proposal on that as well, again for your consideration. I believe this has been supported at many of the committees, which are, of course, all led by Liberals. That was in fact seven minutes in the first round, but it would start off with the Liberals, then a Conservative, then an NDP, and then a Liberal. In the second round you would go down to five minutes: Conservative five minutes, Liberal five minutes, Conservative five minutes, Liberal five minutes, and then three minutes for the NDP.
I understand that quite a number of committees have agreed to that. It would provide us with the additional time to have sustained questioning of witnesses in the first round, and then supplementaries in the second round.