I have just a couple of thoughts.
One is that I haven't seen this rule applied on the committees I've served on—for example, environment and defence in the last Parliament—but I think a couple of points are important.
The first—and maybe, Mr. Poilievre, you support this—is I just want to be sure I understand. There is a bit of discretion, so that if you ask for a dissertation on inflation, for example, and you do that in three seconds, the witness has some time, and some discretion is given to the chair or some mechanism is in place to ensure we treat witnesses appropriately and respectfully and we get answers to the questions you've indicated you want answers to. That's one point of clarification I would put to Mr. Poilievre and any other members of the committee about, to see if they agree.
On the second point, I just want to make sure we're clear.
I want to follow up on what Mr. Ste‑Marie said about the amount of time allocated to witnesses. I'd like some clarity on a few things.
Everyone agrees that witnesses should have the same amount of time to answer as members have to ask their question. For instance, if a member has five minutes, two and a half minutes go to the member for questioning and two and a half minutes go to the witness for answering. The chair is the one who interrupts the member to give the witness the necessary time to answer.
I'd like some clarification on that. I want to be sure I understand what Mr. Poilievre is trying to do and what Mr. Ste‑Marie said.