While that may be the practice in the particular committee that Mr. Drouin references, I stand corrected if I am wrong, but I don't believe that is a standing order. Perhaps the clerk can weigh in on that. It has been customary for you, Madam Chair, to allow some flexibility in terms of how we present, whether knowledge is readily available in one's mind or they are simply refreshing their memory by using material before them.
I think the danger is that you don't want to have a member reading verbatim for hours on end simply to waste time. I don't believe Mr. Van Popta has been doing that at all, from what I've heard and seen so far today and in his brief intervention yesterday.
Ultimately, Madam Chair, you are the chair of this particular committee. You can set your own rules, and you've done a very good job of finding that fine balance. Just because a chair in another committee does something differently, that doesn't necessarily mean that it is a precedent to be followed at every parliamentary committee.