Evidence of meeting #1 for Indigenous and Northern 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.
Liberal
Gary Anandasangaree Liberal Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON
I just have a quick question.
Is this different from what Ms. Qaqqaq sent out in terms of her notice of motion? Is it slightly different?
NDP
Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC
They are all the same. The only one that is different is the 10 minutes. She recommended keeping the 10 minutes, which I think is a discussion for the committee to have. I am open to that. I just thought it was important to also reflect what PROC has done. I know that some committees have moved it down to seven and half minutes. I can't answer which committees off the top of my head. I think that's an important discussion for the committee.
Liberal
Gary Anandasangaree Liberal Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON
We're in agreement in terms of the proposed amendments as brought forward by Ms. Blaney today.
Conservative
Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
We certainly agree with the later two amendments. My only question is.... I know that within this committee, when I've been on it in the past, the cutting off of witnesses is sometimes very sensitive. Do we want to consider seven versus five, or do we just allow the chair some flexibility depending on the circumstances?
Mr. Chair, I would look to your comments on that issue and to those of the other committee members.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bob Bratina
Those are good comments. It actually came up on occasion that I was criticized for not sticking to the time. However, it was almost impossible to interrupt. This was not Mike Pence just dragging on the debate. This was substantive material that you just couldn't interrupt.
I would say, in terms of 10 minutes versus five minutes for opening remarks, that sometimes it does drag on a bit. Points are repeated. I think that if you are coming before committee, there should be a concise presentation because what I would say to all of our witnesses is that things that you may have wished to bring forward in your opening remarks may well come in subsequently within the questioning.
Okay, Adam, you would like to add to that. Go ahead, and then we'll go to Marcus.
Liberal
Adam van Koeverden Liberal Milton, ON
It's not a point of order; it's just a suggestion.
I don't know if this has ever been done in another committee before. However, by saying five to seven minutes, you're encouraging five but saying seven is okay. Perhaps at that five and half minutes you give a 90-second warning so that it's not an abrupt cut-off because sometimes it was like, “Times up; you're done. Sorry, no more.” With 90 seconds, people can then choose to wrap up.
By saying between five and seven minutes, we can politely say that five is requested but seven is allowed.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bob Bratina
I don't know how we make five to seven minutes a process point. In terms of the abrupt cut-offs that were made, I remember very well that these were occasions when people had gone somewhat beyond 10 minutes. It really hurts the questioning process because we have budgeted time for everybody. If the witness is going on and on, it impacts the actual conducting of the business within.
We'll come back to it in a moment. I would prefer five minutes. I think you can say a lot in five minutes.
Marcus Powlowski, you had your hand up.
Liberal
Marcus Powlowski Liberal Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON
I had my hand up before some of the earlier remarks were made—maybe I'm duplicating things—but this came up in HESA, which I'm also a member of.
With respect to Ms. Blaney's proposal, interestingly enough, Don Davies of the NDP disagreed with that somewhat, saying it's not a hill he wants to die on—and I agree with him—but in some cases five minutes may not be enough for a difficult subject. In questioning, you only get six minutes for questions and answers, and there might be some concepts that take more than five minutes to explain and do a thorough job.
The second thing I'd like to point out is that my predecessor, Don Rusnak, who was on this committee, apparently got quite upset with the fact that when elders came before the committee to give testimony, they were cut off early. This was a sign of disrespect.
In HESA we made it five to 10 minutes, at the discretion of the chair. What we wanted with the five minutes was to get in all the questions and not be cut off early. However, I think there may be times when we want to give them more than five minutes.
I'm not willing to die on this. I don't mind one way or the other.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bob Bratina
Just to conclude, all the witnesses are required to give us a preview of their remarks, so we should have the text of everything they wish to say. Sometimes there's a cultural issue where someone's travelled a long way—from, let's say, the High Arctic—and then they're in Ottawa presenting to a committee. I think they would feel that since they're going to be here for the duration, they want us to hear everything they have to say. That doesn't mesh with how we structure our committees, so that could be a problem as well. The thing I would say to all witnesses is what I just said: Everything they wish to present is in the hands of the committee, so if they don't get to it, rest assured that we will have the information and that it may come up in questioning as well.
Gary, did you want to weigh in?
Conservative
Gary Vidal Conservative Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK
Thank you, Mr. Chair. There are a couple of things I would suggest here.
My experience in our prior year here was that there seemed to be some confusion in the minds of the witnesses regarding how much time they had. We started with 10 minutes, and then at some of our meetings we limited the presentation time to five minutes. I'm not sure that was well communicated to the witnesses. They prepared 10 minutes of remarks and then we were cutting them off at five minutes. I think whichever way we go, we need to make sure that this is clearly communicated to the witnesses so that they know what time frame they're working with.
To your comment, Mr. Chair, about the witnesses providing us with their remarks in writing, that happened at times but it sure wasn't consistent. Again, if that's the expectation, we need to make sure those people have communicated to them very clearly that their remarks are expected to be in our hands.
As a final comment, I think the five minutes for some of the witnesses we had at our committee is very limiting. I think five minutes is a really short time for some of these people, who come a long way and have very important things to say. Personally, I would be in favour of 10 minutes, but I could compromise at seven and a half or something like that and be happy with that. Again, it's not a hill to die on, but I think there's a respect factor for the witnesses we have at our committee, who have some very good things to say.
NDP
Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC
I just wanted to add that I'm open to seven and a half minutes, if somebody wants to propose that, but as a reminder, the discretion of the chair is still in the motion. If somebody comes from far away and it's our witness, I think it's important for all of us MPs to say that we believe this witness will need more time and to do some work with the chair to make sure of this, especially if we want to be respectful of cultural practices. That's my final statement on this.
Liberal
Gary Anandasangaree Liberal Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON
I suggest that we land on maybe six minutes, with discretion to the chair. Sometimes we have panels of three, for example, and if each one gets 10 minutes, obviously we really shorten the question rounds. Depending on the panel, depending on how many people and depending on other circumstances, I think you, Mr. Chair, may use your discretion as appropriate, and we'll give you that flexibility. However, let's say, as a baseline, six minutes.
It may be hard for us to impose a pre-written submission rule, just because sometimes we only reach out to our witnesses a day or two ahead of time. Maybe we could encourage witnesses to submit written documents but for the most part keep it as is, with the six minutes and some flexibility for others.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bob Bratina
What do you say then if we go with a soft six minutes—you can put that in a procedure paper—on the understanding that we're not going to jump on anybody once the six minutes have passed? However, everyone needs to consider that the functioning of the committee includes the rounds of questioning. We're all happy—I think most of us are—to extend meetings if that needs to be the case.
My experience over the years chairing things has been that concise, well-functioning meetings are the most effective. I can remember as a mayor or as a councillor in Hamilton doing meetings that went on for hours, and honestly, nothing of substance came out of those meetings. It was probably more a reflection of us as councillors. I hope you see what I mean. If we can follow the rules as closely as possible with the consideration and courtesy that we need to extend to our guests, I think if we're all in agreement, we should land in the right place.
Gary, would you move a six-minute presentation time?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bob Bratina
Do we have any comments on that, in view of what's been said?
Are we all good to go with six minutes with consideration?
(Subamendment agreed to)
Liberal
NDP
Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC
No, I proposed all three and of course the one friendly subamendment I'm happy to support. Hopefully we can get this last vote done for the remainder and move on.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bob Bratina
Okay. On motions on studies, I see hands up for Mr. Anandasangaree, Ms. Zann and Mr. Viersen.
Okay, I think I have an order, and it starts with Mr. Anandasangaree.
Conservative
Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB
Mr. Chair, I think we have to vote on an amendment and on a main motion.
Liberal
The Clerk
For clarification, we are currently on the amendment of Ms. Blaney to the routine motions moved by Mr. Anandasangaree. Any member can request a recorded vote, but if the committee—
Conservative