Evidence of meeting #11 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 39th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was thursday.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Bill Matthews Liberal Random—Burin—St. George's, NL
The minister's coming next Tuesday, is that right?
Conservative
Randy Kamp Conservative Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC
Is there any chance Mr. Da Pont could come before the minister and we could get it all over in one day?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gerald Keddy
The issue was to try to get a schedule in place, and we weren't guaranteed the outcome of this meeting, but we wanted to have a schedule in place, whoever the chair was.
It's short notice. If we could get him before the minister, absolutely. We'll try to do that, but....
Conservative
John Cummins Conservative Delta—Richmond East, BC
Mr. Chairman, if the minister comes on Thursday and you've only got an hour.... How long does it take to do the questioning, so all members get their questions? That's almost an hour, isn't it?
Conservative
John Cummins Conservative Delta—Richmond East, BC
Because you're going to have to back up on the questions, and let him know the opening address is going to be limited, so you can get at least one round of questioning.
Conservative
Conservative
John Cummins Conservative Delta—Richmond East, BC
No, give him a time limit. You want to make sure all the members have a chance to ask a question.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gerald Keddy
Yes. I would assume no more than 10 minutes, but probably could do it in less.
Conservative
John Cummins Conservative Delta—Richmond East, BC
You have to back up, do your math, and figure out how long it takes to do a round, and back up from that, and that's what he gets in time.
Conservative
Liberal
Liberal
Bill Matthews Liberal Random—Burin—St. George's, NL
We should request that the minister come for more than an hour. The minister hasn't been here yet. And Mr. Cummins is right, an hour will go by and we really won't do justice with the minister with the few issues we all want to do justice to. So I think we'd be better off waiting. If the minister can only afford us an hour, from 12 to 1 o'clock on Thursday, I would prefer, and suggest, that we wait until the minister can find a slot and come in and give us a couple of hours--because when are we going to see the minister again if he comes in for an hour on Thursday?
We'd better do some other business and wait for the minister to give us a couple of hours, or the best part of two hours, whichever we need.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gerald Keddy
Simply because of the way the schedule was put together on rather short notice, we could slot him in for an hour. We'll ask for two. If the minister can only come for an hour, we might want to think about taking him for an hour and requesting he come back.
Mr. MacAulay.
Liberal
Lawrence MacAulay Liberal Cardigan, PE
I would agree we need to have him for at least an hour and a half to two hours. The problem is that you always have an opening statement, and it just gives the committee.... The minister cannot give us two hours. That's understandable, because he's tied up. But we've waited a long time, so if it took another week or two weeks.... Probably even next week he could come for an hour and a half or two hours.
I would strongly urge we not take him for the hour.
Conservative
Randy Kamp Conservative Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC
I know the minister is eager to come. Because we gave him fairly short notice for this, there was a scheduling conflict for the other hour. But we are going to get him for estimates, right—
Conservative
Randy Kamp Conservative Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC
—and that's going to be coming up fairly soon as well, where we'll get him for two hours or more for estimates, I assume--or more. So I think we should have him here for what we can get, and then have him back for estimates, and continue on then with those other issues we want to raise.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gerald Keddy
If we have him slotted for a two-hour timeframe at the estimates, an hour previous to that gives us three. I mean, it's the will of the committee at the end of the day. I don't want to miss this slot, and it may be difficult to fit someone else in there on short notice. Today is September 26; this is Thursday's meeting.
Is there any more discussion?
Conservative