Mr. Chair, very briefly, I can't let that go.
First of all, the allocation of questions is by party; it's not by individual. If this committee wants to do it differently, then we should name each individual: Martha Hall Findlay will speak first, and then Rob Anders will speak second. We don't do it that way; we do it by party.
If the Conservative Party wants to let some of their rookies get up first and ask questions, that is the choice they should make, just as we will with our time allocation. But it should be allocated fairly, in proportion to the seats you have in the House, as closely as possible. We have to have speaking times that, to the degree possible, accurately reflect the proportions in the House. The NDP under this configuration gets badly shortchanged. So in the interests of getting this committee off to a fair start and in the interests of non-partisan fairness, we deserve more time.
Rob, you're asking us to buy a bit of a pig in a poke, saying, well, the chair can be fair and distribute time fairly, you know. We want rules that reflect that, and that's what we're asking the committee to recognize.