Evidence of meeting #1 for National Defence in the 42nd Parliament, 1st 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
The Chair Liberal Stephen Fuhr
Are we just talking about amending the word from “adopted” to “proposed”? Is that going to make it work for you?
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Stephen Fuhr
I know what we're trying to achieve, so let's come up with a way forward.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
Okay, let's just go forward. I'll have more concerns when we get down to the fourth motion.
Liberal
Jean Rioux Liberal Saint-Jean, QC
The next motion concerns the reduced quorum. It reads as follows:
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 four (4) members are present, including one member of the opposition and one member of the government.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Stephen Fuhr
Is there any discussion on motion number three?
(Motion agreed to)
Can I get the analysts to come up and have a seat with us, please?
I'll ask the gentlemen to introduce themselves to the committee.
Martin Auger Committee Researcher
My name is Martin Auger, and I'm an analyst with the Library of Parliament.
James Lee Committee Researcher
Good morning. My name is Jim Lee, and I'm with the Library of Parliament as well.
Liberal
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
I move:
That the witnesses from any one organization be allowed ten (10) minutes to make their opening statement; that, during the questioning of witnesses, six (6) minutes be allocated to each party in the first round in the following order: Conservative Party, Liberal Party, New Democratic Party, Liberal Party; and that for the second round the time be allocated as follows: Liberal Party six (6) minutes, Conservative Party six (6) minutes, Liberal Party six (6) minutes, Conservative Party five (5) minutes and New Democratic Party three (3) minutes.
Liberal
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
Yes. Again, going back, the document says that this was adopted by this committee in the previous session. It was not. The motion was actually that the first round had seven-minute rounds, the second round had five-minute rounds, and then there was a third round at five minutes.
The way it worked was that the first round was.... I would propose that each party get seven minutes for the first round; then in the second round, we would all go to five minutes and rotate back and forth until every member has had a chance to ask one question. We'd finish off with the NDP at the end of the second round, and go back to the third round, in which each party would get another five-minute round. We'll find that most of the time, we have more than enough time to get three rounds in, unless we have multiple witnesses sitting at the end of the table.
However, in the interests of fairness and having time allocated on an equivalent basis per member on this committee, I see that in the number four spot in round two, you're dropping the Conservatives down to five minutes, whereas everyone else is getting six. That, to me, is not fair.
I would suggest that the first round be at least seven minutes. The second round would then be a five-minute round, and then you'd go to the third round after that.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Stephen Fuhr
In the third round, we'll just repeat one and two until we are out of time—or just one?
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
The second round should be back and forth until everybody has had a chance to get a question. It's the principle we've always had at this committee.
Cheryl's been on this committee since 2000. I've sat here for the last five years. In the interest of fairness, every committee member should have a chance to speak before we start into a second rotation.
I believe the NDP, in the fairness of time allocation, should get that last speaking spot in the second round after every other member has had a chance to put their questions to the floor.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
In the interest of fairness, the motion is laid out in such a way that it actually provides more than a fair balance of the time to the opposition parties.
Consider that with the three parties, when you subtract the ministers and the parliamentary secretaries, it leaves you with 327 MPs. The breakdown, with 184 of those 327 being Liberal, is 56.3%—that's what the percentage works out to—yet the Liberals are only getting 24 minutes to speak, which is actually 48%. The Conservatives are at 30.3%, yet they are getting to speak for 34% of the time.
In the interest of fairness, there's actually a disadvantage to the Liberals in that in the final analysis we will end up getting less time to speak. The motion I've put forward, as such, provides an unbalance in the direction of the opposition parties.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I guess in my experience, which is only the previous Parliament, the idea was not the balance in the House as a whole but fairness within the committee. Had we applied your rules last time, we would have had to take a lot of minutes away from the Liberal Party in the last Parliament.
It's creating some kind of new precedent whereby what happens at committee is judged in terms of the larger chamber. I don't know of any committee where parties were given different amounts of time in the rounds. I think that's a bad and dangerous precedent in the long term for Parliament. Yes, of course it's in my interest to argue that, but in the last Parliament we certainly defended the rights of the Liberal Party, as the third party, to have equal time in the rounds.
The second thing I would say is that with regard to the proposal to have seven minutes in the first round, six minutes is very, very short. I know a lot of you on that side are new.
It's not about equity among parties; it's about the fact that you might like to ask more than just one or two questions in your round. Seven minutes works fairly well for that. If we drop to six, we'll all find it very constrained in that first round of questioning. Maybe we can separate out those two questions as we're considering this issue, because I think the seven minutes is important in the first round. I'd like to not have that mixed up in the other proposal to shorten time.
Thank you.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
Mr. Chair, I've had the privilege of chairing this committee as well as two other standing committees over an eight-year span. I can tell you that the one thing that committees have always tried to implement is equality and fairness for every member sitting at the table. I would ask that we come to a consensus that we should follow the same process we had in the previous Parliament: a first round of seven minutes, a second round of five, and a third round of another five minutes, time permitting.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
If you look at it in terms of equity within the committee, between the two rounds, all Conservative members will have an opportunity, the NDP will have an opportunity twice, but only four of the five Liberals will have an opportunity. I think in terms of equity within the committee, it's actually still to the advantage—
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
You haven't done the count. We should have one more Liberal in there. I believe in the principle that every member should have a chance to speak before another member gets to go a second time.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Stephen Fuhr
Just for the record, I looked at the last committee. I think the Liberals were shut out of round two, brought back in round three, and then shut out completely.