So we have the motion—
Evidence of meeting #1 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was move.
Evidence of meeting #1 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was move.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
In the same way that I had it for the five-minute rounds.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
I have two comments that I'd like to make.
First of all, in my opinion, it would make more sense to proceed in the same order during the second round of questioning, that is Liberals, Bloc members, New Democrats and then Conservatives.
Secondly, we need to find a way to address one particular problem. There is only one NDP member on the committee and yet, that representative is allocated the same amount of time as the Bloc Québécois, which has two members. I don't know if another committee has found a way to deal with this problem, but I think we need to come up with a fairer approach.
Liberal
Paul Zed Liberal Saint John, NB
In a similar vein, rather than doing it on a party basis, I'm wondering whether or not we should at least give each member an opportunity in the first round, which would give everyone an opportunity to speak, and then you might want to have some of the reverse on the second round. It strikes me that we might want to do something like that.
Conservative
Jason Kenney Conservative Calgary Southeast, AB
To respond to my Bloc colleague's comments, I would point out that this committee is unique in that it is chaired by an opposition member.
As a rule, when a committee is chaired by a government member, the Chair may from time to time ask questions as a government member. Mr. Tilson has suggested that the government be given at least one opportunity to ask questions during the second round in view of the fact that the chairman is an opposition member. The situation is different when the chairman is a member of the government party.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
Thank you for that.
Are there any other comments before I make some, and then ask for the wording of the motion to be read?
Mr. Kenney points out that this is a situation where the opposition chairs the committee, which is true. I chaired the fisheries committee for three years in the last two parliaments. I just wanted to bring to the attention of members, particularly new ones, that there is no hard and fast rule in any committee as to the order and length of questioning in each round; it really is a matter for each committee. Just because a motion is passed one day does not mean the question cannot be revisited in the future if the committee, in general, finds that the motion passed hasn't been working to the satisfaction of the committee, or at least to the majority of the committee.
Allow me to bring to your attention what we did in the fisheries committee—admittedly, Mr. Kenney, with me as the government member as chair. There, the Conservative Party began with a ten-minute round, the Bloc Québécois followed with a seven-minute round, and the NDP followed with a five-minute round. That, I think, deals somewhat with the two and one situation Madame Lavallée mentioned. The Liberals then came up at the end with ten minutes. In the following rounds it was five minutes each for the CPC, the Bloc, the NDP, and the Liberals.
That was a suggestion. It did recognize that the official opposition party should have a little bit more time than the other parties; it did recognize that the NDP was still on the committee, so they had a chance every round; it also gave the government party ten minutes on the first round and five minutes on each round. This committee had timeframes that Mr. Tilson has moved, so the past history of this committee would be what Mr. Tilson moved.
I simply bring those facts to the attention of members.
So far, we have a motion, which I'll ask the clerk to read out in full.
The Clerk
It reads:
That during the first round of questioning of witnesses seven minutes be allocated to each party in the following order: Liberal, Bloc Québécois, New Democratic Party, Conservative; and that in subsequent rounds 5 minutes be allocated to each Party on each round in the following order: Liberal, Conservative, Bloc Québécois, Conservative, New Democratic Party, Liberal, Conservative.
Liberal
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
What I intended to say, if that is what I said, was not to each member, but to each caucus or each party on the subsequent rounds. It wouldn't be to each member. That wasn't the intent of the motion.
The Clerk
It reads:
That during the first round of questioning of witnesses seven minutes be allocated to each party in the following order: Liberal, Bloc Québécois, New Democratic Party, Conservative; and that in subsequent rounds 5 minutes be allocated to each Party on each round in the following order: Liberal, Conservative, Bloc Québécois, Conservative, New Democratic Party, Liberal, Conservative.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
Those are the terms of the motion. If there are no amendments, are there any questions?
Mr. Martin.
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
The only thing I would add, in the interest of fairness, is that I think the second round would be incomplete if you didn't have one more Conservative at the end of it. So we would have Liberal, Conservative, Bloc, Conservative, NDP, Conservative, and the round would be complete.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
Yes.
Mr. Tilson, that's a friendly suggestion. Do you want to include that in your motion?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
So it would be Liberal, Conservative, Bloc, Conservative, NDP, Conservative, and then back to Liberal, Conservative, etc.
Madame Lavallée.
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
I want to press my point, because I'd like to see a fairer approach taken. Earlier, you suggested that during the first round, ten minutes be allocated to the Liberal Party, seven minutes to the Bloc Québécois, five minutes to the NDP and ten minutes to the Conservative Party. In my opinion, if all parties were allocated the same amount of time during the second round, it would be fairer for everyone.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
That would correspond to the number of members from each party. The amount of time allocated would depend on whether the member represented the government party, the official opposition, the second opposition party or the third opposition party.
I'm adamant about this. I'm curious to hear more about your objections, aside from the fact that you have many members.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
Allow me to say that one of the reasons the committee did that for the first round only was because it determined that 10 minutes of questioning in each round really ended up not giving every member who came an opportunity to ask questions over a two-hour period. And that's why, in order to move questioning along and give every opportunity for every member who came to the committee to ask a question or two, it went to five minutes each in subsequent rounds. The first round in that committee was deemed to reflect, more or less, the election results and the number of members sitting. But I can't do anything other than accept the motion and put the question, unless any member has an amendment to the motion.