I feel very strongly that we cannot adopt the routine motion as it was adopted in the last Parliament in this committee, because when you look at the timing of the rounds, you'll see that the first round would take 28 minutes, the second round would take 20 minutes, the third round would take 20, and the fourth round would take 20. Typically we are not even going to get to the fourth round, because when you add 28 plus 20 plus 20, after three rounds we'll have gone through about an hour and a quarter of questioning. If you add, in addition to that, the witnesses who are going to testify, and often committee business that we discuss, we're not going to get to the fourth round; we're only going to have three rounds.
So what's going to happen if we have three rounds? Each of the Liberals will have one question. The Bloc, between the two members, will have three questions. The one New Democratic member on the committee will have three questions, and out of the five members here, only three of us will get to ask a question and two of us are sitting here, week in, week out, unable to ask a question. It's not fair.
If one of us misses it, fine. But to have one member on the committee ask three questions and have two other members of the committee not able to ask a question, week in, week out, is simply not fair.
I suggest the amendment proposed by Mr. Galipeau is a good compromise because it allows everyone a chance to ask a question. Mr. Galipeau has proposed an order that would allow each member of the Liberal Party to ask a question. It would allow each member of the Bloc to ask a question. It would allow the member for the New Democrats to ask a question, and it would allow a chance for each member of the government to ask a question.
We then have this fifth round in there, where the other members of the committee, if they want to ask a question, will get a chance.
I think we should go with that; I think it's fair. I certainly don't think the motion that was adopted in the last Parliament is at all fair.