Alas, I fear my intervention may have come too late, as we now have a subamendment on the floor. I wanted to offer that in the House of Commons Procedure and Practice manual, under “Committees of the Whole” and “Other Uses of Committees of the Whole”—I don't have the pagination because I'm on my phone, Mr. Chair—it says:
[T]he House frequently adopts special orders setting additional conditions for debate, such as rules ensuring that the answer by the Minister or Parliamentary Secretary does not exceed the time taken for the question....
That language is pretty clear. The problem with the language of “approximate” —while I think that's largely what the chair will end up doing, and there's a bit of discretion in the committee of the whole to that effect—is that it makes your job a lot more difficult. Part of the idea is to set a clear rule that makes it clear how you're to proceed, so if there is a disagreement about the extent to which that's happening appropriately, you can lean on the rule. If you have to get very strict with the clock, then you can. We all hope things will proceed in such a way that people are satisfied that it's roughly similar in terms of time and won't be challenging you on that too often.
However, in the event that there is a challenge, you want the rule to be clear enough that you have firm guidance. If it's not, I fear we will descend into argument about the meaning of “approximate” and your conduct as chair, and whether it's acceptable to the committee or not.
There's a bit of what people sometimes call “future tripping” by my Liberal colleagues about how the rule will happen in practice. I hear that. Until we get a bit of experience with it and people have a sense of what to expect, that's likely to happen. I like having clearer wording. What we're hearing is that the expectation is that this would more likely happen with ministers and with departmental officials than with outside witnesses.
Part of it is to set the rule. If the committee feels like things are proceeding well, this isn't going to come up. Even if a witness is taking a little longer but the MP is not objecting, that is more or less in the motion Mr. Poilievre has proposed in the first place. It's going to come up in hard cases, where there's friction. At that point, you want a clear rule.
The initial wording is adequate. We need a bit of experience with it in order to build a bit of trust and to have people feel good about how it's going to be implemented. If we need to revisit because it is falling apart, then we can do that. Trying to craft something right now that's going to speak to all potential cases of breakdown is going to be difficult. The initial wording really does give you the tools you need, Mr. Chair, to implement what would be a clear intention of the committee if it were to pass. With a little more experience, in the event that it's not working, we can hammer out a compromise.
I'm still inclined to support the wording of the original amendment.