International Trade Committee on Feb. 4th, 2016

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

Do you want to make an amendment?

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

I guess we just vote down that part of the motion, is that correct? Or we withdraw it and just don't place it?

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

We'd still need one for the rest, though, wouldn't we?

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

We still have to do quorum, but that would be separate.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

Why don't you amend it?

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Could we do a friendly amendment that we have no subcommittee on agenda and procedure?

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Does everybody agree?

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

They're each independent motions, so I think procedurally it would be cleaner if Mr. Dhaliwal simply withdrew that motion, which would be number two here, instead of.... It's not really an amendment, I don't think.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

It's whatever we have to do, Clerk; we just don't need a subcommittee.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

Can I speak to it, too?

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Yes, keep going.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

Mr. Chair, as you know, there are some new members and some have experience. My understanding, when I was here in previous parliaments, was because the subcommittee sets the agenda, you as a chair stay away from that. The whole idea was that it's a non-partisan thing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

No, I don't think so. The chair was part of it, wasn't it?

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

That was just a comment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Okay.

(Motion withdrawn)

Let's go to another one.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

For meeting without a quorum, I move:

That the Chair be authorized to hold meetings to receive evidence and to have that evidence printed when a quorum is not present, provided that at least three (3) members are present, including one member from the government and one member of the official opposition; and that in the case of previously scheduled meetings taking place outside the Parliamentary precinct, the Committee members in attendance shall only be required to wait for 15 minutes following the designated start of the meeting before they may proceed to hear witnesses and receive evidence, so long as one member of the government and one member of the opposition is present.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

It's just a procedural thing that a meeting can't start unless two people are here.

(Motion agreed to)

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Good morning everyone.

The fourth motion deals with the time for opening remarks and questioning of witnesses.

The motion state that all witnesses, regardless of their organization, be entitled to 10 minutes to make their opening statement.

Would you like me to read in full the part of the motion on the time allocated and the order of questioners?

The first round will be as follows: Conservative Party, 6 minutes; Liberal Party, 6 minutes; NDP, 6 minutes; Liberal Party, 6 minutes. The second round will be as follows: Liberal Party, 6 minutes; Conservative Party, 6 minutes; Liberal Party, 6 minutes; Conservative Party, 5 minutes; and finally, NDP, 3 minutes. That's 50 minutes in total.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Go ahead.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

I have no problem with the first part of it so that if you have two or fewer witnesses, they have 10 minutes each. That's fair. If you have more, then I think going to eight minutes is fair. I think that's appropriate.

I also want to make sure the chair has some liberty there, so that if he needs to put a fourth witness in there, he can break the time up to make the committee function so that we respect the fact that witnesses travel in from all across Canada. Sometimes you get votes in the middle of the day. With something like that, you want to do what you can to make sure they may utilize their time. I have no problem giving the chair a little bit of leeway on that, whether it's formally or informally.

What I think we might want to change is the rotation by time. I would propose that we go six minutes in the first and second rounds. I'm a little confused. You have the NDP going first here for seven minutes, and then you get the Conservatives going for seven minutes, and the Liberals only going for five minutes.

[A voice]

No, it's six minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

No, we have “six” here. I don't know if you have the right copy.

[An hon. member]

No, we don't.

[An hon. member]

Is that the first page?

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

No.