Thanks, Chair.
Well, hope springs eternal, so I haven't completely given up on trying to get myself out of the fifth spot in the second slot, but it's another hill I'm not going to hold my breath on.
Let me just say to Mr. Lamoureux that I appreciate the fact that they're willing to discuss it, but it still leaves us with the same problem. The problem is that the government's getting a 12-minute run. That's the issue. I'm already in the spot where, if anybody gets jettisoned, we're gone. Those are the results of the election. I have to live with them.
In terms of the element of fairness in everything else—again, I wouldn't have a horse in this race—the problem is a government getting a 12-minute run at a committee. I don't mean the Liberal government, but any government. That's a huge advantage I've never seen before. I think the government has to recognize that as the problem. Quite frankly, to be fair, I thought the official opposition made a very fair suggestion.
I recognize, Mr. Lamoureux, that you're right. We have a lot of committees. Public accounts, of all the committees, is the premier oversight committee, and we had the government lead off. I don't think it's like that anywhere in the Commonwealth, so I recognize that it's to your credit that you were willing to put that the way it should be.
To be fair, I thought that for the official opposition to give up that spot to give the government some latitude to break up the 12-minute run was pretty fair-minded too. You know yourself that when this place is packed and everybody's paying attention, the first up gets the greatest attention. I thought it was something for the official opposition to give that up.
Your counter-proposal, Mr. Lamoureux, still leaves us with.... I might point out that negotiations are still happening with the parliamentary secretary, not anybody else. I would say in fairness that the 12-minute run thing is still there, and that's the real problem. That really is a problem. I'm not aware of any other committee where a government member has ever had a 12-minute run structurally built in. Man, I'd give my political right arm to have that at every meeting I started to go to.
Thanks.