I think it's more fundamental than that. It boils down to parliamentary privilege.
Everyone in this room, in September and October 2008, went out and knocked on doors in their constituencies. Almost every person here has industry in their riding, whether it is forestry, mining, other resources, or oil and gas. Every one of us went out there. We haven't always been successful, but we've fought three elections in four years. I remember knocking on doors in 2004, in December 2005, and January 2006. We've all worked hard to get elected, and we all have a right to represent our constituents.
In June, through a lot of hard work and compromise across all parties, this committee was able to publish a unanimous report on the forestry industry. Everybody will agree, considering where our Parliament was last spring, that was not an easy thing to do, yet we got it done.
There has to be fairness in this, and it really boils down to the privilege issue that each member should have the utmost opportunity to ask questions. Nobody's any less than anybody else in this committee, and there should be a fair time allocation to each member to be able to ask those questions. Before someone else gets a second round, everybody should have had that fair opportunity, because we all represent our constituents. That's our job.
So I'm going to propose a subamendment to Mr. Regan's amendment: round one would be seven minutes, Liberal, Bloc, NDP, and Conservative; round two would be Liberal, Conservative, Bloc, and Conservative; round three would be Liberal, Conservative, Conservative, and NDP; and because everybody would have had a chance to ask a question, round four would be Liberal, Bloc, NDP, and Conservative.
In fairness, that would reflect the four rounds we had. Everybody would get an opportunity to ask a question. It would reflect the NDP's additional time, because of the additional votes and seats they received. It would also reflect a prorated share, in fairness to all the committee members, who I believe have worked hard. I think it's fair to everybody to get that opportunity.