Evidence of meeting #1 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4 p.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
No, never.
I think it can be done. You're so diplomatic that I'm sure you'll come across as being a nice guy.
I'll leave it at that.
4 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
I don't know about that, but yes, I could try that. Yes, we could reduce the time there.
Would people be in favour of those two scenarios that Ms. Blaney has presented? I don't know if anyone has jumped in support of any of those scenarios yet; nor has anyone jumped in support of reducing the time given to the witnesses.
Go ahead, Mr. Turnbull.
4 p.m.
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
I was just going to show support for the suggestion made by Mr. Gerretsen. I thought it was a really good suggestion, potentially, to shorten the opening statements. I do think that empowering and giving flexibility and discretion to our chair, whom I completely trust to ensure that everyone gets equal time, is good.
I think Mr. Lukiwski's suggestions were really good as well. I do like giving the chair the ability to potentially shorten and distribute the time fairly to ensure that everybody gets a chance to ask questions.
I really don't think there's any way to guarantee that people don't get cut off or that everyone gets equal time. I think there's a large degree of uncertainty about how many interruptions or how many different side discussions will ensue.
Those are my thoughts. Thanks.
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
Todd Doherty Conservative Cariboo—Prince George, BC
I'll go back to what I said before. This will be a rare circumstance, in that I'm agreeing with my colleague Mr. Gerretsen, so mark it down in the calendar.
What I said earlier on—
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
I'm going to go into the House and stand on a point of order so everybody knows this, Todd.
4:05 p.m.
Some hon. members
Oh, oh!
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
Todd Doherty Conservative Cariboo—Prince George, BC
I knew you would. You'd probably tweet it out too.
Listen, again, we need to put faith in one another that we are moving forward in a collaborative fashion. It's the chair's prerogative. We may have witnesses who are repetitive. If there is any way that we can give more opportunity for us to question those witnesses, I think that's the best way of doing it.
The other thing is getting their statements in advance so that we have an opportunity to review them, rather than having them just table-dropping them when they show up. That helps. It gives us, as committee members, the opportunity to fully prepare so that when they are before us, we can literally say, “Listen, we've read your opening statements. We have questions. Let's get right into it.” Then our colleagues from the Bloc and NDP can get a fair shake.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK
Just to quickly underscore what I was saying earlier, the whole objective, I believe, Madam Chair, is to ensure fairness for all members representing all parties. What I would do, for example, if it looked as though we certainly couldn't get through the entire second round, nor would we get to the third round, is cut it off after both the Conservatives and the Liberals talked. In other words, I wouldn't give the Conservatives an extra question and then say, “We're out of time.” I would try to do everything in my power to ensure we had equal amounts of time for every party, whenever possible.
There will be times, as you well know, Madam Chair, that you may want to have 15 minutes at the end of a meeting for committee business. That will mean we have to truncate the time we have for questions. It's again a discretionary thing that I think we should empower you with, but it's a bit of a leap of faith. I agree with that, but I think that if you have the ability to circumvent and to cut down on the amount of time each round takes to ensure that all questions are asked whenever possible, probably that's the best approach we could take.
Obviously I would hope that the Bloc and the NDP parties would agree to that idea. That approach would be taken to benefit them primarily, more so than the Liberals or the Conservatives.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
I appreciate that feedback. I'll absolutely make note of that.
Go ahead, Ms. Blaney.
4:05 p.m.
NDP
Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC
I want to thank everybody for this discussion. I think it's always important to have these conversations. I definitely have noticed, in the committees in which I've participated, that more often than not the Bloc and the New Democrats do not get a second chance. That is a concern that I will continue to bring up after this discussion so that we don't forget it.
I really appreciate how Mr. Lukiwski as an independent chair made a decision. I also understand the process that a chair works under. I have definitely worked in that role in previous work experiences.
The thing that I will bring forward is that if we don't have a change in this or we don't actually have some sort of process, it will continue to be left to the discretion of every single chair. Of course, being PROC, we are the mother committee. I think it's important for us to look at how we're going to guide other committees. I want to challenge that a little bit and say we may want to look at that process.
I will continue to think that the NDP and the Bloc should have that spot in the middle. We don't often get to the second round for the Conservatives and the Liberals anyway. Even there, I'm not in any way delusional that we're going to get an opportunity to ask a second time.
Hopefully, with what I see from this discussion, we will actually implement something and not just have a discussion and leave it completely. Hopefully, we'll have a vote and move on.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
All right. I think we can probably get to a vote very soon.
Let's just hear from the last two speakers, and then we will vote.
Go ahead, Monsieur Therrien.
4:10 p.m.
Bloc
Alain Therrien Bloc La Prairie, QC
Thank you very much.
Because of technical difficulties, I had trouble hearing the interpretation of Ms. Blaney's comments. That's fairly typical of what's been happening since the pandemic began. Unfortunately, despite everyone's best efforts, technical difficulties arise from time to time, which simply underscores how important this discussion is. Technical difficulties like the one I just had mean that I don't always get my allotted speaking time. Technical problems cause delays, and consequently, the Bloc Québécois and NDP members get left out of the questioning.
I have confidence in the chair. I think she's extremely competent, but I don't understand why we can't just see to it that we get all the way through the second round. That would make everyone's job easier, including hers.
If we cut the time given to witnesses from 10 minutes to six minutes, we would seldom run over time and everyone would almost be guaranteed a turn to speak. I think everyone around the table is in favour of ensuring all sides have an opportunity to speak, as intended.
I'm not impugning the chair's motives, just the opposite. All I'm trying to do is lighten the burden on her, so she doesn't find herself in an awkward position where she can't respect our wishes. That's not what I want for her. She doesn't deserve that.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
I appreciate that. What remains is Ms. Blaney's point, also, about actually setting something in place permanently so that other committees could follow it. If it weren't to be permanent, we could make the change, as proposed, about cutting the witnesses' statements down to six minutes.
Of course, if it seems as though we will be crammed for time, in the second round we can reduce everyone's time to four minutes so that we could be assured, guaranteed, of getting the NDP and the Bloc questions in at that point. That could always be done. I have done that in the past as well. I've just carved time off from the other parties that have more time so that we get to the Bloc and the NDP. That could be done.
Go ahead, Mr. Tochor.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Corey Tochor Conservative Saskatoon—University, SK
I just want to lend my support to the idea that we can do things better in the future. We can't keep doing the same things that were done and expect different results. In this committee, if we took some of the best parts of Ms. Blaney's and Tom's proposals, I'd look forward to seeing what that would do for the management of time. Especially at the end of committee meetings, we never seem to have time for committee business. If we can shorten that up a bit, we should be able to get more things done.
Those are my comments on this issue.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
Okay.
We were talking about getting to a vote. What does this look like now? Are we going to put a whole bunch of ideas together and make those changes in this section?
Ms. Blaney, would you like to go with one of the scenarios you've put forward and vote on that, or make some amendments to that scenario?
4:15 p.m.
NDP
Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC
I would love to move a simple change to have the Bloc and the New Democrats in the second round with their 2.5 minutes between the two rounds of Liberal and Conservative questions. I will leave Mark to make any other motions that he may want to based on his own ideas.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
Okay. Since that has been moved, should we vote on that first before any other motions are entertained? Are there any friendly amendments to make to this, or should we just vote?
Seeing as there are no hands raised, we'll vote on that change.
Go ahead, Monsieur Therrien.
4:15 p.m.
Bloc
Alain Therrien Bloc La Prairie, QC
Sorry, I'm not trying to be a killjoy here, but I'm still having major issues with the interpretation of Ms. Blaney's comments. I think something's wrong with her headset. She put one on, but the interpreter couldn't make anything out. On top of that, the volume dropped and I could no longer hear anything, not even what she was saying in English. I missed everything she said.
4:15 p.m.
Bloc
Alain Therrien Bloc La Prairie, QC
I'll just wrap up by saying that I'd like to vote in favour of the motion, but it needs to be amended first to reflect the discussion we've just had. A lot's been said, so I'd like to have the motion reread to make sure we've all got it straight and we're on the same page.
4:15 p.m.
The Clerk
Madam Chair, I've gotten word here in the room that there does seem to be an audio problem with Ms. Blaney's mike.
I don't know, Ms. Blaney, if you could try to unplug and plug it back into your computer to see if that might address the issue. The interpreters were also having some difficulty understanding you.
4:15 p.m.
NDP
Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC
I've unplugged it and plugged it back in. Is that better?