Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Sept. 29th, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Seeing a quorum, I'm going to call this third meeting of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development to order.

Colleagues, we left off at the last meeting close to the conclusion of the routine motions. We had passed nine routine motions, and I believe it was the 10th routine motion that we had left to deliberate on and pass before completing the process. So, committee members, we'll proceed to that at this point in time. If committee members do have a motion with regards to the 10th motion, I'll guess we'll hear from them. The motion is with regards to the questioning of witnesses and the rounds involved in that process.

If anybody has suggestions with regards to the 10th routine motion, I'm sure the committee would love to hear from you.

Mr. Rickford.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Frankly, I was hoping to do that with the critics of the respective opposition parties, before I tabled anything. Is there any—

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Why don't you table what you would like and we'll address it.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

I'd be happy to do that for the benefit of the members who are here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

There is no motion on the table as of now.

If anybody at the table would like to move a motion relating to the questioning of witnesses, you can.

Mr. Rickford, the floor is yours.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just finished distributing copies of the motion I am proposing. I'd like to table that motion. You have the numbering and language of the routine motion from the 40th Parliament, but it will not be the wording of my motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

So you're moving a motion.

Do you want to read that into the record, or are committee members satisfied seeing it in front of them?

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

I've distributed what we intend to table as the motion in respect of two aspects of the routine motion, specifically the questioning of witnesses and the order of questions. There is a rationale at the bottom, which can also be used as the language.

For the clerk, to the extent that this motion survives the discussion and interventions by members of the committee, it doesn't have to be written out as such per the Standing Orders. There is a mechanism here to facilitate and simplify the language, but out of an abundance of caution and certainty, I have written out what the four rounds would look like.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Ms. Bennett.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

I just need to say that I've never been at a committee where the third party was not allowed any questions in the second round. I'm not sure where this comes from, but it doesn't sit well with me.

Whereas we had four parties then three parties, are we now only going to have two parties in the second round? Where does that come from?

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Mr. Rafferty.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

My experience has been that we don't usually get past the second round, unless someone is there for the whole period of time. So the questions for the third and fourth rounds are somewhat meaningless. I think we need to look at the first two rounds.

My experience has also been the same as my colleague's, that the last slot in the second round of questioning would be the third party's slot. But as far as I'm concerned it looks okay, aside from that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Mr. Rickford.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Thank you, and thank you for that analysis, John.

I think a couple of points are relevant. This is consistent with the style and the form that has been set down in the Standing Orders for most of the other committees. It's based on a couple of simple rationales. One is that each committee member should have a full opportunity to question the witnesses and, under this form, that's exactly what happens. I might point out for the benefit of the official opposition and for the third party that, uniquely, the orders here in the first two rounds potentially allow all four of the official opposition committee members to speak in the first and second rounds.

Similarly, the third party, being in the first round with the larger allocation of minutes, takes a position. And you might notice there that this does not enable the government to have all their committee members speak in the first two rounds, since we have six members. We're only taking five positions.

So those are the rationales for that. I have provided the rationale in those regards at the bottom of the page.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Seeing no additional speakers on my list, I think we'll—

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

I have to point out there's no Liberal in the fourth round either.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Ms. Bennett, did you want to speak?

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

Yes. This is Parliament and to see the second round, particularly for witnesses, whether it's questioning the minister on estimates, or.... There are lots of times where I hope we will have the full meeting for one witness or one panel, because it's very difficult to do anything in an hour. It just seems unreasonable for there to be no third party in either the second or fourth round.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Mr. Rickford.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I hope that as a matter of good faith, the member for the Liberal Party remembers that I have no intention of being unreasonable in this. As we discussed in our own private meeting, from time to time, there would be a certain openness to share time. We're not precluded from doing that from time to time. But first of all, there's the discretion of the chair throughout this.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Ms. Bennett.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

We're not going to go back over this issue, but I think the parliamentary secretary never even used to sit on committees, let alone vote on committees. So this motion seems more than top down. The parliamentary secretary said to me that part of the rationale was to increase the third party's time to seven minutes in the first round, but when you read the way the previous routine motion was for item 10, the third party already had seven minutes in the opening round. So I'm not sure how keeping seven minutes in the first round and eliminating the third party from the second and fourth rounds can be viewed as fair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Ms. Duncan.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I apologize for being late. I had a delegation of chiefs arrive at the last minute and had to be respectful.

I spoke with Mr. Rickford about this yesterday. I didn't see the detailed list but generally speaking, we're fine with this. This is certainly consistent with the committee I was on in the last Parliament. In fact, this is fairer because we were then allocated.... The agreement between the Liberals and the Conservatives was that we only got five minutes in the first round, and often there wasn't a third round, so we had five minutes in two hours. So I think in many ways this is fair, and I appreciate the deference of Mr. Rickford in agreeing to our going first. We support this.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Mr. Rickford.