Industry Committee on Feb. 5th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Mr. Rota, could you just reread the order of questioning so that we can focus on your proposal and continue the discussion or call it to a vote?

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

Round one, seven minutes: Liberal, Bloc, Conservative, NDP; round two: Liberal, Conservative, Bloc, Conservative, NDP, independent, Liberal; round three: Conservative, Bloc, Liberal, NDP. Then round four would be exactly as in here: Conservative, Bloc, Liberal, NDP.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Mr. Lake.

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

I'm going to go back to talking about why this doesn't work. In my original motion, all I did was take the allocation of time from the last time around. In my own motion, I didn't add any time to what it was last time for the Conservative Party despite the fact that we added 20 seats in Parliament. I guess I added one minute by changing from six to seven minutes. That's it.

Mr. Rota is actually proposing that we take away one Conservative round, so the Conservatives, despite the fact that we added 20 seats, would lose a round of questioning. That is absolutely ridiculous. I'm not sure how he would possibly have the gall to even ask for that.

I would point out that in my original proposal, just going through the four parties, the Conservative Party, which has 46.4% of the seats in the House of Commons, would have 39.7% of the minutes, a 7% smaller share of the time. The Liberal Party would have exactly the same, with a 25% share of the seats and a 25% share of the minutes. The Bloc would have a 15.9% share of the seats, but 17.6% share of the minutes, so they would have a higher share of minutes in committee than they would seats in the House of Commons, which I think is reasonable. The NDP would have 12% of the seats in the House of Commons and 17.6% of the minutes of questioning.

The only party that would have less is the Conservative Party, and the Liberals are actually proposing to cut that down. I think any reasonable person listening to these proceedings would say that's obviously not reasonable, and there's no possible way we could support that motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Monsieur Garneau.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

I accept that you didn't add anything, but you did do a redistribution. So if we keep the same percentage, but we take one of the Conservative spots or the independent spot in round two and put it into round three or round four, you'll still have the same percentage, but it'll be a distribution that we'll accept.

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

Say that one more time.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

You presented the argument that you didn't really add anything, but you did do a redistribution. So if you look at what you propose in round two, we had suggested just taking the Conservative off the bottom of round two. But to try to be fair and to go in your direction, if you were to take that Conservative spot and put it into round three or four, we could live with that. Or if we put the independent in round three or four, then we'd have the same number.

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

With respect--I understand you've not been on a committee before--under this proposal, we'll almost never see a round three or four. We'll have rounds one and two, and with the minutes once you get through your witnesses, we'll almost never have a round three or round four. So what really matters in terms of distribution are rounds one and two.

Beyond that, if we do go further than that under the proposal I'm making, it actually hurts us more, because we get only 25% of the questions from there on in. So if we go beyond that, our percentage is going down. Rounds one and two are really the important ones to get right, because typically they will be the only ones we get.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Mr. Warkentin, then Mr. Simms and Mr. Garneau.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

I thought I might have a compromise, but I'm sensing that I haven't come up with one.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Mr. Simms.

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

Would the percentages Mr. Lake used apply to the first two rounds, or are you using--

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

They apply to the first two rounds.

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

They apply only to the first two rounds?

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

They're for the first two rounds. They go down after the first two rounds for us, but stay the same for you, and go up for them.

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

Which we never get to.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Can I suggest that we suspend for five minutes again and try a second stab at this to see if we can get some agreement on how this round is going to work? Is the committee agreeable to suspend for five minutes?

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

No, there's no agreement? Okay. Let's continue discussion, then.

Is there any further discussion on the proposal from Mr. Rota?

Seeing no further discussion, I'll call the vote on Mr. Rota's proposed motion. If I could just repeat it again to clarify, it is that the witnesses be given up to 10 minutes for their opening statement, and that at the discretion of the chair, during the questioning of witnesses, time and sequence be allocated as follows, and that a member may yield their time to another: round one, seven minutes, Liberal, Bloc Québécois, Conservative, New Democratic Party; round two, five minutes, Liberal, Conservative, Bloc Québécois, Conservative, New Democratic Party, independent, Liberal Party; round three, five minutes, Conservative, Bloc Québécois, Liberal, New Democratic Party; and round four, five minutes, Conservative, Bloc Québécois, Liberal, New Democratic Party.

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

This is the amended motion, right, the Liberal amendment we're voting on?

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

All those in favour of the motion as I just read it.

(Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

So we've finished the adoption of routine motions.

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

No, that was the voting on the amendment.

[An hon. member]

It passed.