Natural Resources Committee on May 9th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you for that. That speaks to Mr. Harris' comments. But I think we're on two tracks here and I just want to deal with one at a time.

Let us deal first, if we could, committee, with the first question, and that is the rounds of questioning by members. Do we have a consensus on the way it's been described by the clerk?

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Just as a clarification, Mr. Chair, basically the philosophy of this is that everybody on the committee, in the spirit of all of us being equal here in committee, will have one shot to have a question before we get into a round two. Theoretically, if everybody wanted to pose a question, everybody would pose a question until we went around to round two. Is that right? Everybody on the committee could pose a question?

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Yes, that's a sound description. Thank you, Mr. Allen.

Roy.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Where these problems sometimes arise is that if it's round one...I guess it depends how you define rounds. You won't get necessarily everybody in if you go that way, because you'll have to keep coming back.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

No, it's at the discretion of the parties. With the exception of Ms. Bell, it's up to the parties how they want to divide their time in each round. You get five minutes a round in the Liberal Party.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

I understand what you're saying there; we can divide our time. I think the way the numbers work is that if there are four Liberals here, two Bloc, and one NDP, and four government members, will that constitute a first round, and then even if we go around and around, everybody will get a five-minute question?

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

The way I was envisioning this is that everybody would have at least an opportunity to ask a question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Yes.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Call it round one or call it round 28; it doesn't matter, but what it means is that if Mr. McGuinty starts with the first question and then Mr. Cardin has the next question and Ms. Bell has the next one, and then we start with the parliamentary secretary, and he has a question, and then we go back again, we keep following that process until such time as each individual.... You only get a chance in the first round to ask one question. That's it. Ms. Bell doesn't get a chance, as we go around, to ask five questions when only one person from this side gets to ask one.

I can defer, but regarding your point of its coming back to this side, there will be eleven questions asked, because everybody but the chair gets to ask a question.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

That's where you've run into problems. It depends, too, on how long the meetings are and whether we're left with two or three members who haven't had a chance to ask a question on the government side or the official opposition side. If we can agree that everybody has a chance to ask a five-minute question on the Liberal side, on the government side, for the Bloc and the NDP, then I think that accomplishes the mission. I've seen it left hanging before when we never had time, and members on both sides didn't get a chance to ask any questions.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

I don't want that to happen. I agree with the concept that everybody should have the opportunity.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

If I understand, Mr. Chairman, in four rounds, the government will have 20 minutes, the official opposition would have 20 minutes, the Bloc Québécois would have 10 minutes, and the NDP would have five minutes over four rounds.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

What it works out to is.... That's on the first three rounds. Then the last one is a bonus.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

So the NDP has 10 minutes as well...on the first round and the fourth round.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

In four rounds, yes.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

So again, the government gets 20 minutes, the official opposition gets 20 minutes, the Bloc gets 10 minutes, and the NDP gets 10 minutes.

[The Clerk]

Fifteen.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

I was right. I'm going to recap: government 20, official opposition 20, Bloc Québécois 15, and the NDP 10.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Here we go. We're going to go through this one more time and then we'll just say it.

It does work out, as Mr. Allen suggested, that there's a potential for every member to get one question. That will occur in the first three rounds. Then the fourth round is simply a repeat of the first, so that the opportunity is for somebody to get two questions, particularly the Bloc and Madame Bell.

Again, for the first round: five minutes from the Liberals, five minutes from the Bloc, five minutes from the NDP, five minutes from the government. The next round: five minutes from the Liberals, five minutes from the Bloc, five minutes from the government. The third round--and this is the one that gets tricky--is five minutes from the Liberals, five minutes from the Conservatives, five minutes from the Liberals, five minutes from the Conservatives. That way, everyone has had an opportunity to have five minutes. In the last round we go back to one, two, three, four; each party gets another five minutes to wrap up.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Chair, I think that's the right way to apply it, but I've seen it at committee where they just keep going around and around, not picking up questions that members of the opposition or the government have. The bottom line is that everybody--

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

It's taken a long time to get to it.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

--in the committee should have a chance to put a five-minute question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Everyone will have a chance, and then what it works out to be in the fourth round is that each party, again, has a five-minute wrap or rebuttal.

Mr. Ouellet, go ahead, please.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Your numbers don't add up, because the last way you said it, you said 20 minutes for the first round, 15 minutes for the second, 10 minutes for the third round, and 10 minutes again for the fourth round, and 20 minutes for the last round; this makes up 75 minutes. The way it was said previously was 20 minutes for the Liberals, 20 minutes for the government, 15 minutes for the Bloc, and 10 minutes for the NDP. This adds up to 65 minutes. So there's a ten-minute discrepancy between the solutions.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Mr. Chair, there are 11 people on the committee, and if you use five minutes per person, that's 55 minutes. Then it's 20 minutes for the last one for each party, so that's 75 minutes.