Industry Committee on Feb. 5th, 2009

[An hon. member]

I'm confused.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

I'll clarify this.

What Mr. Lake is proposing is the following order. Round one would consist of seven minutes: Liberal, Bloc Québécois, Conservative, and New Democratic Party. Round two would consist of five minutes: Liberal, Conservative, Bloc Québécois, Conservative, New Democratic Party, Independent, Liberal Party, and Conservative Party. Round three would consist of five minutes: Liberal Party, Conservative Party, Liberal Party, and Independent.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

No. Sorry. Are you talking about as amended with his amendment?

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

No, with what you've proposed.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Or what I've proposed just recently? It would just be that round three then would be Conservative, Bloc, Liberal, and NDP, like round four looks right now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Okay, I see.

Go ahead, Mr. Simms.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

I have just a quick suggestion so that we get clarification, because this conversation between the two of you kind of loses the rest of us. I won't chalk it up to our abilities, but nonetheless, shouldn't we have a discussion based on each individual round, come to some sort of agreement on round one, and then move to round two? Can't we work something out that way?

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Why don't we do this? Why don't I read out the amendment to the amendment, as Mike Lake has proposed, and then we'll pause for five minutes. You can all discuss amongst yourselves what you want to do. Then we'll reconvene and see if we have a consensus.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Do you want me to propose it again? One more time?

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Yes, if you could start from “round one” and go all the way to the end.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Okay. Round one, seven minutes: Liberal, Bloc, Conservative, NDP; round two, five minutes: Liberal, Conservative, Bloc, Conservative, NDP, Independent, Liberal, Conservative. At that point everybody has had one chance to ask a question, and the NDP has had two. Round three would be Conservative, Bloc, Liberal, NDP.

There's one quick clarification that I'd like to get, because I understand Mr. Rota is concerned. It's just a clarification. If we don't have time for everybody in round three, we don't have time for anybody, right? That would be an important principle. I can understand Mr. Rota's concern if we only had time for two rounds. The Conservative and Bloc would go, and the Liberals wouldn't get an extra round. So I would say, for round three, if you don't have time to complete the round, then no one gets any questions.

That would probably address part of the hesitation you have there. Is that fair?

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

That sounds like a step in the right direction.

[An hon. member]

It's all or none.

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Exactly.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

We'll suspend for five minutes.

Committee members can discuss this during the break, and we'll see if we can come to an agreement.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

I'm calling the meeting back to order.

We're discussing the routine motion concerning the allocation of time for questioning. Do we have a consensus on this motion? If so, is somebody willing to propose that motion?

Mr. Rota.

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

I'd like to propose....

I'm sorry, is yours now off the table or on the table? Or what are we doing here?

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

That's what we're discussing. That motion's on the table.

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Very good.

The seven minutes works well, I think. That gives us enough time, so I don't think that's the issue. For round one, I think what we have there is acceptable: Liberal, Bloc, Conservative, New Democratic Party. For round two we're proposing Liberal, Conservative, Bloc, Conservative, NDP, independent, Liberal. Round three would be Conservative, Bloc, Liberal, NDP.

Let me explain the reasoning for that. When we look at the independent, what we've seen is that really, for all intents and purposes, it's a Conservative interjection. And that was given in by the Conservatives.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Are there any discussions on the amendment to the motion that Mr. Rota has proposed?

Mr. Lake.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Again, that goes against the fundamental principle that everybody at the committee gets an opportunity to ask a round of questions. If the independent weren't on this committee and we had a Conservative seat on this committee, where it says “independent” it would say “Conservative”. We would need five rounds, because we would have five people sitting on this side of the table. We only have four rounds. There are four of us sitting at the table; the independent is not here today.

We're just asking for everybody to get a shot to ask a question. I'm sure that would be the same thing as you would ask for in the same circumstance. There's nothing worse than sitting on a committee for two hours and not even taking a round of questioning.

This reflects the balance in here. I've done some calculations, and based on what I've proposed in the first two rounds, the percentage of minutes, 25%, compares exactly, bang on, with the percentage of seats Liberals have in the House, 25%. Even with my proposal, we have 46.4% of the seats in the House and we have 39.7% of the minutes in committee. We're the only one of the three parties that has actually a smaller percentage of minutes than we have percentage of seats in the House.

So to cut out a full round of questioning on our part--that's not going to happen. That can't happen.

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

What if we added another Conservative at the end of round three? How would that work?

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

No, Anthony, no, it can't work. We're the only one--with my proposal as it stands--that has a smaller percentage of minutes than we have percentage of seats in the House.

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

So if we put the independent back at the bottom and brought the Conservative back up, would you do that?

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

It's absolutely fine if you want to do that. I'd put it that way only because generally when we're questioning, I think it makes sense for the last word to go to the two major parties. But if you want to do it that way, that's fine with me.