Evidence of meeting #1 for Natural Resources in the 39th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was witnesses.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Lee Richardson
The next one is in regard to in camera meeting transcripts. This is on the reverse page of the sheet that was passed out. It reads: “That one copy of the transcript of each in camera meeting be kept in the committee clerk's office for consultation by members of the committee.”
Would someone care to move that motion?
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Lee Richardson
This is one that I hope we don't have any difficulty with, but just in case it ever does get controversial we should make this clear.
This sets the notice required for any substantive motion to be considered by the committee so that we don't have anything sprung upon any member by someone bringing it to the table and getting into it. I've found that usually 24 hours is sufficient, just so that the clerk has an opportunity to advise everyone. We meet on Tuesdays, so it's not like a Monday meeting, for example, where you're going to have trouble with the 24-hour notice over the weekend.
I would suggest 24 hours, unless anybody has a problem with that. I'll ask for a mover for the following motion: that 24 hours' notice be required for any substantive motion to be considered by the committee, unless the substantive motion relates directly to business then under consideration, and that the notice of motion be filed with the clerk of the committee and distributed to members in both official languages.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Lee Richardson
We might want to have some debate on this one. There are various formats that have been used. This is regarding time limits for witnesses, statements, and then their questioning--the time they are given for their opening statement and the rounds that we have traditionally gone through in terms of opposition versus members.
I think the clerk has a format that we have used in the past. Tell the committee what we have used in the past.
The Clerk
You'll be aware that in the last Parliament, this committee was part of the industry committee. At their meeting that committee adopted 10 minutes for the opening statement, and that at the discretion of the chair during the questioning of witnesses, time and sequence be allocated as follows: round one, five minutes; then it went to the official opposition, Bloc, NDP; then it would go to the government. Then in round two it would be—sorry, I'm reading, because last time it was government—Liberal, Bloc, government. Then in round three, again for five minutes, it would go Liberal, government, Liberal, government. In round four, if we got that far, everybody would get one more round.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Lee Richardson
When we had the last minority government there was considerably more debate, because it hadn't happened for a long time. This is a fairly sophisticated formula to give equal time based on the proportion of members in the House and therefore members on the committee. In the first round of questioning, essentially each party will get five minutes, and you can divide that as you like.
We would start with the official opposition for five minutes, go to the Bloc Québécois for five minutes, then to the NDP for five minutes, and then a government member would have five minutes.
In the second round, you would go back to the Liberals for five minutes, to the Bloc Québécois for five minutes, then to the government for five minutes. The NDP would miss that round.
Then in the third round, it would just be the Liberals for five minutes and then the government for five minutes.
Then we'd go to a fourth round and we'd go back to the same as the first round, and each party would get five minutes.
I know it's tough when you're the only one on the committee, but I think in fairness this is how.... I know it took a long time to come to that format last time, and we felt it was fair to everybody to come to that determination. But we're open for debate.
Yes, Mr. Harris.
Conservative
Dick Harris Conservative Cariboo—Prince George, BC
Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make a couple of suggestions.
The first is regarding witness time. I know--and there is at least one other member who has sat on committees for 13 years in the House--that invariably we find that witnesses have trouble keeping to the allotted time. I see the suggestion was to have 10 minutes for each witness. I'd like to suggest that it be reduced to five minutes and that witnesses be required to provide an executive brief for the members of the committee to follow while they're talking. I think that 10 minutes per witness is a considerable length of time, and if you have, say, five or six witnesses, that is an hour of presentations before you get back to the very first one to ask questions.
I'd like to suggest that we reduce the witness presentations to five minutes, and increase the first round of questioning to seven minutes. That would kind of compensate for that and give the witnesses a little more time in the first round. That way, if you have six witnesses, you would get to the first one with questions in 30 minutes rather than in an hour, and the information would probably be a lot fresher.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Lee Richardson
Just for clarity, Mr. Harris, we will decide with the clerks how many witnesses we might have on a given day, and that might take care of some of that problem. Also, if, for example, it's a panel of representatives from one organization or one area, they may have to divide the allotted time among themselves. So if it is 10 minutes, they'll have to figure out who gets the 10 minutes or whether they're going to speak at all. That's just one suggestion.
You have opened the debate, and Mr. Cullen wants to comment.
Liberal
Roy Cullen Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
This is a perennial issue. My problem with going with less than 10 minutes is that you are bringing people in from around the country, and if you have to tell them they have five minutes....
I know what you're saying. In the round of questioning there's a little bump there. My preference would be to make it 10 minutes, but have the chair really exercise his discretion to remind people, and maybe in setting up there could be a clock we put up--I don't know, but something--to help us really religiously work with the 10 minutes.
You're right, sometimes we get panels with too many speakers, and by the time you get around to questioning, an hour has blown by.
I would favour the 10 minutes myself, but really have discipline around that 10 minutes, and then have five minutes for the remainder.
I want to raise one question, and we should be clear on this. In the official opposition, we will have four members. So you start with five minutes from the official opposition, then you go to the Bloc for five minutes, then to the NDP, and then to the government side for five minutes. We might have four members who want to ask questions. The next Liberal who puts his or her name on the list would get five minutes, and then you would move down.
What that means is this. The Bloc has two members on the committee and the NDP has one. Catherine, you are the sole member. Let's say we have three or four rounds. That means that Catherine, if we have three or four rounds, will get three or four questions, which is fine. I guess we just need to nail that down, because I have been at some committees where they say it's the official opposition first, and they go one, two, three, four, which is not totally fair, either.
I'm not sure what the way around that is. We have to go with that, but we'd ask the indulgence of the committee members. Rather than just asking questions because they have an allotted time, try to give all members of the committee an opportunity to put a question forward. We need to understand that this is how it works. The Liberal would get the first question, and even though there might be four Liberals wanting to ask questions, it would go around, so to get to those other Liberals, we'd have to go to four rounds, if that's what the committee chooses.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Lee Richardson
I think we're talking about two things here and I want to deal with one at a time. I thought we had gone to that second part of your question, Mr. Cullen.
Let me again see if I've got it right, because I sensed there was a consensus.
The way the questioning will work is this. I will get back to Mr. Harris' point on the witnesses, but on the questioning it's my understanding that what has worked well in the past in a minority government is that we will start off the questioning with five minutes for the Liberal Party, and you can do with that five minutes whatever you want. You can speak for a minute and ten seconds each if you want, but that's your allotment. We'll stick very closely to that. After that five minutes of questioning we go to the Bloc and they get five minutes, and they can divide it up on the first round or not at their discretion. Then we go to the NDP for five minutes, and Madame Bell can obviously take that five minutes on her own, or any part of it. Then we go to the government for five minutes. That would constitute the first round of questioning.
Then we would go back to the Liberals again for another five minutes. At their discretion they can speak how they want. Then we go to the Bloc for five minutes, and then we go to the government again for five minutes. That's pretty much how it worked. Then we'll go back, and the next round is like the first round, and the NDP enters in.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Lee Richardson
Yes, four rounds is essentially what we would try to get in for every witness. How does that work out in terms of cumulative time?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Lee Richardson
No, because we don't have five minutes for each party each time. We drop off one party each time. It ends up being 20 minutes for the government and 20 minutes for the opposition, and 10 for the Bloc.
Are we comfortable with that? Does everybody get it?
Ms. Bell.
NDP
Catherine Bell NDP Vancouver Island North, BC
On the ten minutes, I'm assuming that we're dealing with two---
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Lee Richardson
Can I just get a consensus on the questions from members first so we can dispense with that, and then we'll go back to Mr. Harris' point, which I think is what you want to comment on, the witnesses' time.
NDP
Catherine Bell NDP Vancouver Island North, BC
Do you want me to break it up or just do it all together?
Conservative
NDP
Catherine Bell NDP Vancouver Island North, BC
On the ten minutes, I have an issue for the witnesses. There was a proposal to reduce it to five minutes. I want to argue to keep it at ten minutes. I was supporting Mr. Cullen's remarks on that.
Also, if we are inviting people to come from far and wide, ten minutes doesn't seem like a very long time for them to get all their points in. It may facilitate our not asking so many questions later. That was one point. But also I think people need to be heard and it's the purpose of this committee to hear what they have to say.
I argue for ten minutes.
