Thank you, Mr. Chairperson.
I was elected in the byelection, as you might recall, Mr. Chairperson. But fortunately for me, I did have the privilege to sit on the aboriginal affairs committee, the health committee—probably four or five committees, this being one of those committees. And what I witnessed was that the Liberals started it off, followed by the Bloc, and then there might have been a Conservative, but then it went to the NDP. Now, the point is that as best as I can recall, on all of those committees it started off with the Liberals as the official opposition. The thing I want to emphasize is that the NDP got a chance every time in the first round.
If the Conservatives want to ensure that every member of the committee gets the opportunity to speak, we can extend the length of the committee time. We can ensure that happens.
We just have to take a look in terms of the institution and what's best for the institution. That's the reason I believe the Liberal Party should be able to be in that first go-round. And then if we want to ensure that everyone else gets the opportunity to speak, I don't object to that. Sure, if it means we have to sit a little extra time in order to accommodate that. But from what I could tell in the short period of time I was here, that was in fact the case.
I can tell you from my provincial experience that was always the case. In fact, in committees—and I sat on every committee at the Manitoba legislature—the opposition party spoke at least five to one in terms of time allocation. I don't know what happens in England or some of the other parliamentary jurisdictions, but I just find this is very peculiar. Maybe we can sit down and discuss it, but this is definitely something I couldn't agree to. I would be abandoning every principle I have on parliamentary tradition.