Evidence of meeting #1 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Conservative
NDP
The Chair NDP Pat Martin
Is there any more debate on the subject, knowing full well that with the majority they have the numbers here anyway?
But I appreciate the movement so far. We do want to get this off to a good start. The reason we're spending a fair amount of time on it is that this is going to last us for four years. It's rare to change this mid-session. You do this once and establish the speaking order, so we want to make it fair and we want to get it right.
On the motion, John?
Liberal
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
Mr. Chair, obviously they have the voting power, but I do think this is a deviation from past practice, and I do think it is setting us off on a tone that “might makes right” rather than a fair and equitable procedure.
I think I've never been on a committee where the third party did not speak third. If the third party speaks fifth, I think this is a deviation from past practice and tradition, which I don't think is appropriate.
Obviously I don't have the power to stop it, because they have the majority, but I would like to register my opinion on the point.
NDP
The Chair NDP Pat Martin
Fair enough, John.
The only thing I would add, perhaps, is that if we had established 10-minute rounds, you would have been on as the third opportunity. So after 20 minutes, you will still be on. Your spot will only be five minutes. What Mike puts forward is that there will be three speaking spots for them, two speaking spots for us, and one speaking spot for you. That's reasonable, in my view.
Again, I'm just the chair. Here I am editorializing again.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
Mr. Chair, then, could you just go through...? Most likely, with five-minute segments, we're probably looking at 15 or 16 potential questions in a two-hour meeting.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
So would you mind, just through you to the clerk, basically laying out that meeting for us so that we know exactly where we stand?
It looks to me like Mr. McCallum, the Liberal Party, would get two interventions. I certainly think that's fair. It looks like every Conservative member will have an intervention. It looks like that's fair.
So I actually don't think this is as bad as it might appear at the outset if you go through the entire 15- or 16-question block.
NDP
The Chair NDP Pat Martin
Yes, that's right. It looks to me like the Conservatives would end up with six opportunities, the NDP with four--and you only have the four spots--and the Liberals with two in the course of two rounds.
Is that correct?
NDP
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
Well, we're actually going to be able to go longer. Two rounds would be 12 questioners. That's one hour.
Probably, looking at two witnesses, it is more likely that we'll go to 14 or 16.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
Probably two and a third, or two and two-thirds; if we could just have that laid out, I think....
Actually, although no party will be completely happy, I don't think it's necessarily too bad.
NDP
The Chair NDP Pat Martin
The upside is that every committee member would get a speaking spot, which is something we've often strived for in committees by divvying up spots. You don't want to sit there week after week and never get an opportunity to ask a question.
I think we may have arrived at a pretty good solution here.
Did you ask the clerk to lay that out?
NDP
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
Yes. I'd like them just to roll through the 14 or 16, s'il vous plaît.
It's just to give you an idea of how the meeting will unfold.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
I'll do it.
My guess, Peter, is that, on average, we'll have 30 minutes of presentations from witnesses. Let's say we have three and they use up all 10 minutes. That leaves us an hour and a half for a discussion.
Each one of these rounds, which is exactly the same, is 30 minutes. You'll get two in the first half-hour, you'll get two in the next, so you'll get six if we make it a two-hour meeting: 30 minutes of presentations and an hour and a half of questions.
We'll get enough to cover everybody here, and John will get three opportunities. He actually gets three spots.
NDP
The Chair NDP Pat Martin
In fact, if the spots stretch a little bit, it will be your spot that drops off, as the last questioner of the last round.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
We will be the last questioner. It will be Jacques and I not asking questions, or whatever.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
I'm not just a pretty face, Mr. Chair. I've been working on this.
NDP
The Chair NDP Pat Martin
Yes: no self-aggrandizement. It isn't really allowed.
There is a motion on the floor.
Just to be abundantly clear, it reads, Mike, as follows: the first questioner, NDP; the second, Conservative; the third, NDP; the fourth, Conservative; the fifth, Liberal; the sixth, Conservative; to be repeated until we run out of time.
That's fairly clean and clear.
(Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])
Good. We have consensus. We're off to a great start.
The third item we have to clarify is with regard to witnesses belonging to the same organization. It's a challenge for the clerk sometimes to schedule witnesses when we have a study where the various parties submit all their wish lists for witnesses. It's up to the clerk to try to decide a reasonable balance in the limited time we have.
I presume this motion is about giving the chair and the clerk the latitude to cluster witnesses or...?
