Chair, when we invite people, particularly parliamentarians, to come to this committee, there is no obligation for them to come, and they are invited so that we can ask questions. The amount of time is at your discretion, Chair.
In the routine motions that I have before me, it's at the discretion of the Chair to have five to 10 minutes. The concern that was raised at the very beginning of this was that we wanted to have time to ask questions of the ministers. That time was taken up and we asked to be able to move right to questions instead of having statements, for which we have written speeches. The committee said no.
How much time would then be up to your discretion. The time you allotted for a half hour meeting—and actually less than a half hour meeting—was 10 minutes. You have the discretion from five to 10. You gave them 10, and the first witness was allowed over eleven and a half minutes.
The point that I'm making, Chair, is that because of the discretion of the Chair, we have lost our opportunity in this first round to ask questions of these ministers. We can assure you that there will be a motion to invite these ministers back, because they were not invited to speak to us. They were invited, particularly by members of the opposition, all of us, to ask them questions.
There are more government members on this committee than there are opposition members. There are only four opposition members here, and our right to ask questions of these ministers has been removed. I'm very concerned that the rules were applied in that way.
Chair, I hope that your discretion will be used to ensure that we always have the right to ask questions, particularly if it's ministers coming to report to this committee and to answer questions about how they are spending Canadians' money. We want to hold them accountable for that, and we've lost that opportunity today.
Thank you.