Evidence of meeting #1 for Public Accounts in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was amendment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Yes, when we finish. We will go through the order here. Is agenda and procedure in here? Okay.
Liberal
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Let's go through the order and we'll come back to that. I am told by the clerk that we can deal with that motion later.
On this next one, we've had some direction I guess from the past and also from PROC. It deals with the time for opening remarks and questioning of witnesses.
The routine motion is that witnesses be given five minutes to make their opening statement, and if they have additional information it should be deposited with the clerk of the committee; and that during the questioning of witnesses five minutes be allocated to each questioner as follows: Conservative Party, New Democratic Party, Conservative Party, NDP, Conservative Party, Liberal Party, Conservative, NDP, Conservative Party, Liberal Party, Conservative Party, NDP, Conservative Party.
Now, this is the last Parliament's.... However, I'm willing to take any motion. What I would certainly suggest—it's in my capacity as chair to make suggestions—is that five minutes for a witness to come here is not enough. I think most other committees have adopted the 10 minutes for witnesses to appear. There may also be some question in regard to not so much the order but the time allocation.
Madam Shanahan.
Liberal
Brenda Shanahan Liberal Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would propose—unless that's the motion on the floor, in which case I am proposing an amendment—that witnesses be given 10 minutes to make their opening statements and that the order of speakers be as follows: in round one, Conservative, six minutes; Liberal, six minutes; NDP, six minutes; Liberal, six minutes; and going into round two, Liberal, six minutes; Conservative, six minutes; Liberal, six minutes; Conservative, five minutes; NDP, three minutes.
Conservative
Liberal
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
All right. We should have some debate on this.
Mr. Christopherson.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Oh yes, we're going to have debate.
First of all, I thought we were going to do PROC and the PROC template is to be accepted. It's seven minutes. It's exactly the way it was mentioned in the motion, but it's seven, not six. I'm hoping that's where we go. That's the template that most are using. You even referenced it, Chair, so I hope we can go easily and get by that. Otherwise, we're going to have problem there.
The only other thing I would also mention is on the witnesses. With the public accounts committee, Chair, you'll find that it's very rare that we have just one witness. Most of the time we will often have the Auditor General, the AG, here. We may have a deputy minister here, we may have an ADM, and we may have someone from an agency. It's not unusual to have six or seven people lined up, so what we did in the past was that we said five minutes was the standard time allocated for witnesses, with the ability to extend to 10. Otherwise, you're going to end up with almost no meeting by the time you hear all of the witnesses at 10 minutes each, and that 10 minutes tends to get stretched a little too.
I would ask the committee to consider the notion of five minutes with the ability to extend to 10, given the nature of this committee and the number of witnesses we have. You'll find that on average it's usually about four, I would say, but we could easily have five, six, or seven, on occasion. Anyway, I just leave that out there. That's not a deal breaker.
For the seven minutes, we're going to be here a long time if we don't go to that really quickly and say, “That fight's been had, so let's just go there.”
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
I don't want to hear more debate, but you'd be prepared to make an amendment, I imagine.
Madam Shanahan.
Liberal
Brenda Shanahan Liberal Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC
I have two points on that. Having experienced the special committee on physician-assisted dying, I understand the member's point about witnesses testifying, how important it is to hear them. But I'm going to rely on the chairman and the vice-chair, the steering committee, to organize the witnesses in such a way that we're able to properly hear what they have to say and have the time to question them.
On the second point, my understanding is that while PROC has gone with a different allocation, this is the allocation that most of the committees are agreeing to. Six minutes, to me, is perfect because you gear yourself to five minutes
and then you get an additional minute.
I think that's perfect.
Conservative
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Go ahead. You have your motion for six minutes, and then I'll amend.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
All right. We have a motion right now for six minutes. The trouble is we're going to ask the question on the motion, then.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
I'm going to make an amendment, and I'm going to start talking. If there's no agreement, we're going to be here a while.
I'm not accepting less than PROC. We fought like hell for that. There was a deal cut. Part of the deal in here.... You'll notice that the Liberals are getting back-to-back. I'm willing to let that go; I'll leave that to the Conservatives. That's how that came to be. There was a switch there, I say to my Conservative colleagues, whereby the seven minutes went to everyone. Right now you're allowing the government to have the floor for 12 minutes. That is an amazing feat, if you can achieve it.
I'll leave that with the Conservatives. The odds are we won't get around to the second round, so my three minutes won't happen very often. That's why I'm fighting so much for the front end, because that's the only time I'm going to get the floor.
It was fair there. There's no reason for it not to be fair here. If I haven't already, Chair, I move an amendment that we move from six minutes in round one to seven minutes, and I strongly encourage the official opposition to take a look at what they're giving the government here, with double back-to-back control of the floor.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Mr. Christopherson, I would entertain an amendment to her motion, whether it's a friendly amendment or just a straight amendment. We'll vote on the amendment, and then on the motion.
NDP
NDP
Conservative
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
I can, and that's why I'm saying to you that if we can get a quick agreement here that we're going to go to the PROC model, this is going to go really smoothly and we're all going to get along fine.
If not, I intend to get comfortable here and I'm going to speak to this for some time, because what's fair at PROC is fair here. I know public accounts and fair's fair.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
My amendment would read that the opening round, instead of being six minutes, would be seven minutes. That's all for now. I leave it to the Conservatives to give some thought to the Liberals' getting back-to-back. I'm fighting for the first round.
Liberal
Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC
If we go to the seven minutes,
we would still have 14 minutes in the first round, as the order is the following: Liberal Party, Conservative Party, NDP, Liberal Party. We would have even more time than we had under the motion that proposes six minutes. I just wanted to make sure you understand that is what it will be like.