Okay. I'm fine with it.
Evidence of meeting #31 for Finance in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was finance.
A video is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #31 for Finance in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was finance.
A video is available from Parliament.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Phil McColeman Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
Would we set an outer time limit, so that if 100 people showed up, we would be able to deal with that?
11:45 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Yes, we would have that. We will have to decide how much time we want to allow. Of course, it will also depend on how many witnesses we have in each area as well, because in some areas, such as Toronto for sure, we would have too many.
Does anybody have any suggestions? What have the other committees been doing? Do they set aside half an hour or an hour?
11:45 a.m.
The Clerk
International trade has an hour— [Inaudible—Editor].
11:45 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
It varies among committees. Some have done 15 minutes, and the trade committee has done 45 minutes to an hour.
Do we want to set a 45-minute maximum?
11:45 a.m.
Some hon. members
Yes.
11:45 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
We are agreed.
Does anybody have anything they want to suggest or ask on the pre-budget consultations? They are starting to come together well, as people....
With regard to the open mike, we'll be putting out a news release this afternoon that will include the possibility of open mike sessions. People need to keep in mind that we're back on the 18th. On the 19th, 20th, and 21st, for four hours each day, from 3:30 to 7:30, we'll be hearing from the regional development agencies across the country, including the vice-presidents of ACOA, WD, FedNor, etc. That's the first week back. It will be four hours for three days for the regional development agencies to talk about the questions we raised about achieving growth.
We'll hear from Mr. McColeman, and then we'll adjourn.
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
Phil McColeman Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
As a question of process on the open mike, there's the possibility of more people wanting to speak than we can allow because of the time limits. Will you have a process in place?
You said you're going to make a public announcement about people being able to register and that it will be first-come, first-served at the mikes. It can be explained to people who may not get a chance that we did it on a fair basis and took the first ones, the first 20 people or that kind of thing, and they got two minutes each.
I'm just thinking that to avoid the conflict of someone feeling rather put out that they—
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
The way it has worked is it's been first-come, first-served, and they have to register.
Our problem, and the reason we have to put a time frame on it, is that we are in a city a day and we have to move to the next city that night. We're going to be up against plane schedules. If we have the time, then we might be able to go over the hour, but we want to limit it to be able to schedule the committee's travel to the next stop. From where I sit at least, if we have the time and there are more, then I'm willing to hear from them, but we don't want to box ourselves in so that we can't catch our plane to the next stop.
With that, have a good weekend. Thank you for your co-operation.
The meeting is adjourned.