Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Baker, here's how it worked in the last Parliament. If our allocated time was five minutes to question the witness, the chair would interrupt us two and a half minutes in, leaving the witness the other two and a half minutes to answer.
That said, the member still had the ability to make a comment rather than ask a question. I've had occasion to use my time to address the committee regarding the issue in hand, instead of questioning the witness.
However, when we hit the halfway point in questioning the witness, Mr. Easter would stop us and give the rest of the time to the witness.