In terms of fairness, I used to chair not a committee but a subcommittee on international human rights. We operated by consensus. We would have hearings and then we would ask questions.
Like in this proposal, we had opposition members at the back end, as the last people to ask questions. The only way we could ever accommodate them was by letting the committee run over time. We met just before question period. We met from one to two o'clock, two days a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Questions run over. Someone asks a question and then the answer winds up running over. This happens all the time. It may be different here, but we would have someone talking about their experience of being tortured, for example. As chair, you can't cut them off, so they go on, and what started off being six minutes winds up being seven or eight minutes.
In order to accommodate the people at the back end in asking questions, we would allow our meeting to run through the S.O. 31s. When I would realize we were running over, I'd send the clerk out and ask the people around the table if anybody had an S.O. 31 so we could change the order. I don't think we will have that flexibility, because the room we're in now will frequently be booked by somebody else coming in afterwards, so we won't have the ability to extend our meetings.
The point I'm getting at is that I think the chances that the NDP will get any of its three minutes at the end are very low. The chances that the Conservatives will get their five minutes, while not quite as low, are pretty low. I think this is a fundamentally problematic issue to be dealt with. I would say that it would make more sense, quite frankly.... I like what Mr. Richards was suggesting, but the fairest thing actually would be if the Liberals had the last spot. I'm not saying that they should have three minutes. They should still get six minutes, but it should be in the last spot.