Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to underscore a few points. We have heard that other committees have agreed to this approach, and that may very well be true. Other committees, however, have also agreed to different approaches.
I have been told that, at the Standing Committee on Health, the order in the first round is: New Democrats, Conservatives, Liberals. In the second round, the order is: New Democrats, Conservatives, New Democrats, Conservatives, New Democrats, Conservatives and Liberals. That is what one committee has adopted. The principle I am trying to maintain is that each party can speak in each round. The same thing was accepted in government operations—government orders—I'm sorry, legislative affairs. If we are looking at other committees to see which direction we should go in, we should look at them all, because there are some where this principle has been observed.
As for what Mr. Menegakis has just said, the new aspect that the government is trying to have accepted is that everyone can speak, and we accept that. Perhaps there is another way of doing things to be considered, and I know that we will have to go back to something that has already been decided. We could reduce the time allocation. If we are afraid that some opportunities to speak at the end of the meeting will be cut off, we could reduce the speaking time. So someone would have to do the math—the clerk, perhaps—to decide which round to reduce the time in. We could reduce the time in the first round from seven minutes to five, as has been done at this committee for a long time, or we could even reduce the time in the second round to four minutes. We would have to do some calculations to see what could be done. If the fear, the concern, is about the time, if we are afraid that some people would have no time to speak, another possibility would be to agree to have two options, two speaking orders with different time limits, one for one-hour meetings and another for two-hour meetings.
Once again, I can be flexible in an attempt to get the principle accepted. Let me give you an example, Mr. Chair. Perhaps you have heard of it before. I agree that it is maybe not the best example, but nonetheless, it is a real one. Let me give you the distribution of the parties in the 37 th Parliament. There were 173 Liberals in the majority government; there were 66 from the Reform Party making up the official opposition. There were 37 from the Bloc, 13 New Democrats and 12 Progressive Conservatives. This is the speaking order that one committee adopted: the Alliance, the Bloc Québécois, the Liberal Party, the New Democrats and the Progressive Conservatives. In total, the Liberals, who had seven committee members, had 12 minutes. There are six of you now and there were seven of them, including the chair. The Alliance got 12 minutes, the Bloc Québécois got 12 minutes, the New Democrats got 12 minutes and the Progressive Conservatives got 12 minutes. So each of the parties got 20%. I am giving you this example to illustrate how the majority went about safeguarding other principles, such as giving each party the chance to speak, and such as an acceptance by the government party that, in a committee, opposition parties had a different role from theirs. I go back to what I said in the debate today: one of the fundamental roles of Parliament is to ensure that the government is held accountable for its actions and its decisions. That is also the case in the committees.
Gentlemen, as you deliberate, and as you dig in your heels to insist that you want one way and no other way, consider how things have been done in the past. This committee has evolved. I could tell you about the same committee in the 38 thParliament. Yes, things have evolved and the percentages for the governing party have increased. But they have never equalled the percentages for all the opposition parties combined—never. That is what is being proposed at the moment.
Perhaps it is not deliberate, I am making no accusations. But what you are doing could lead to the erosion of some of the fundamental principles of Parliament. It is dangerous.
Precedents are created, perhaps by accident, perhaps by design, I do not know. We have to be careful about that. I have given one example, and I am going to repeat it so that I am sure you understood.
When our party had a majority, it had seven members, just like the Conservatives today. All opposition parties could speak, even those with only 12 or 13 members. They were given the same amount of time. The second round was similar to the first, as I was saying just now. All parties had a right to speak in the fourth and fifth rounds. I am not talking about the third round. I can give you a copy of it, if you like; these are all facts.
I hope that Mr. Gourde is listening because he has a role to play as a representative of the government that has to make sure that both chambers and their committees operate properly. I agree with Mr. Julian, who recognized that the government party and the third party have duly elected representatives in regions with official language minority communities. He talked about the need to recognize and to respect certain principles, and the request for everyone to be able to speak has been accepted. I will come back to that question.
I feel it is a question that must be asked. Perhaps we should ask Mr. Gourde, or all members individually. Since you are insisting that each member of the governing party be able to speak, for that is what you are doing, would you be interested in adding another mechanism that would allow each member of the committee to speak? You will be protected. When the time comes to count heads, the parliamentary secretary would probably be the one to speak, unless you agreed otherwise. But after that, it would have to be required for the other members, like Mr. Weston, Mr. Lauzon and Mr. Galipeau to have the chance to speak. We are not talking about that; we are just talking about the governing party.
If you want to take the principle you are suggesting to its conclusion, you would have to include a rule stipulating that every member will speak. Unless, as Mr. Harris was saying just now, we do not want to lose the right to give up our right to speak. We have to give that right, so that Mr. Lauzon has to give up his right to speak so that Mr. Gourde can speak for a second time. Then Mr. Weston would give up his right to speak so that Mr. Gourde can speak for a third time.
If you take the principle you are suggesting to its logical conclusion, it would have to be written into the committee rules. I am going to think about it because we will have the time to include a rule like that, perhaps not before the end of this meeting, but at the next one. If we want your principle to be observed, we will have to make sure that it is done in the right way.