I'm a little confused. We started with the principle that all members of the committee should be able to speak. Even though it isn't necessarily how we have always worked, I can accept that.
But we went further. We're insisting on respecting a percentage of the time, so that we have the majority of the minutes. But there is also the matter of knowing what would be appropriate in relation to how we operate.
I don't know what will happen. I know that we were waiting for Mr. Weston to arrive so that the government party has the majority. Now that he is here, I imagine that he will dispose of the matter as he wishes. I'll do a test. I'm going to see if people really do want to compromise and work together. If we gave the Conservatives another turn at the very end of the fourth round, all the Conservative members could speak in the four rounds, at the discretion of the parliamentary secretary, of course.
I am going to confirm what Mr. Godin said this morning. And I also said it at the last meeting, but Mr. Godin wasn't there. In your case, you let your members speak. But I have been in situations where the parliamentary secretary didn't let the other members speak. Some members that we are putting this to can also attest to that, but let's stay with the matter at hand.
Mr. Chair, Mr. Lauzon—or Mr. Gourde, I can't remember anymore—just said that if we gave the Conservatives another turn in the fourth round, only five Conservatives would get to speak. But this is no longer an issue because if this happens, everyone around the table would be able to speak.
Perhaps we could present a new subamendment, but we still have to be careful. Maybe I'll wait until we resolve the current subamendment. So if it were rejected, I would propose this second subamendment to find out, once again, to what extent we are ready to collaborate or if there is no willingness to collaborate.
Mr. Chair, I will close by asking you to remember what I said at the beginning, that we could hand this to the steering committee to determine whether we can somehow agree. Otherwise, we risk spending two hours here this morning for nothing.