Public Safety Committee on May 3rd, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Yes, but it could go on for 15 or 20 minutes for the first person.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

At that point, the Chair would intervene.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

I think this could be a very difficult situation, I'm not sure. You can keep discussing it, and I'm your servant here, but I can see this could make it almost impossible to treat everyone fairly, where everybody would get a turn.

Mr. MacKenzie.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

I think I understand what Mr. Ménard is saying. He wants it to be cumulative time only on the questioner, and then the stop watch, if you will, is the chair to keep the answers brief. I think what he's trying to overcome is when someone comes in here and, in an attempt to avoid all of the questions, uses up the time in a long answer. There are perhaps other solutions to it, but I think what he's trying to do is say that the chair then has to stop the answer because there's no clock on the person who's doing the answering. The chair would have to keep it very short. It may be difficult to do.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Are there any other comments?

Mr. Hawn.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

I think the Chair will encounter serious problems when he attempts to limit the response of a witness.

It might cause a bit of combativeness unnecessarily between the chair and the witness.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

If it only becomes a problem for the Chair, then already it's a step in the right direction. Right now, both the Chair and the committee member asking the question run into difficulty.

You'll see for yourself what I'm talking about when you come face to face with certain witnesses, as I'm sure you will. You'll see what happens when you ask a question and the witness goes on and on. We could always complicate matters. I'm proposing a fairly simple solution whereby witnesses would also have three and a half minutes to respond. I didn't want to get into specifics, but that can easily be done. All that's required is for the Chair, or most likely the clerk or some other staff member, to keep a close eye on the clock, much like in a hockey game.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Ms. Kadis.

[Susan Kadis, Liberal, Thornhill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Wasn't the system workable and fairly successful in the previous committee? Are we aware of that?

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

If you're asking my opinion, it worked reasonably well. There were a couple of times when--Monsieur Ménard is correct--there would be some witnesses who didn't really want to answer questions. I don't know if this will really solve it. Generally it worked quite well, and everybody usually got a turn within two hours.

[Susan Kadis, Liberal, Thornhill, ON]

My experience in chairing the Standing Committee on the Status of Women is a little different. It wasn't exactly structured the same way in terms of who spoke when and we really didn't have any significant problems, but it was a different committee with different material, etc.

I think it's very much incumbent upon the chair to keep that control to ensure that it keeps flowing, people have equal opportunity, and the witnesses do not overextend. That applies to our questions and it applies to the witnesses. I think if it's chaired appropriately it shouldn't be a significant problem. It's not necessarily worthy of changing, even though I understand there were some issues and I'm sensitive to that. This way it makes it more challenging for the chair, but I think it's important that those issues are brought to the committee's attention. That was the experience.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

I agree with you. I don't know if there are any further comments, but I have found in my experience that if the questioner felt the witness was not answering the question they would say “point of order”. They would appeal to the chair and say, “On a point of order, I don't think the witness is answering the question and I would like to explore this further.” If you have a chair who's sensitive to the situation and fair, I think it can be handled that way.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

He would be losing his time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

The questioner is losing his time?

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

While the member is raising a point of order, he's wasting time allocated to him.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Generally the point of order was not included in the time of the questioner, but there would be some leeway. Depending on what's happening, even the seven minutes is sometimes extended to eight or nine minutes. If it's a really good exchange and there is information being gathered, I don't have a problem with sticking to exactly the seven minutes, depending on what the situation is.

It's going to be really tough to make a rule that covers every problem we will encounter, I think. The rules generally work quite well. But I hear what you're saying, and it's up to the committee. It's whatever you wish. We have to play by the rules we make, and I just hope that if we make some new rules here it will not be a disadvantage to us.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

We could test several approaches during the course of this Parliament. We could have a pilot project.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Does anybody want to make a motion? How do we proceed?

Mr. Hawn.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

I move that we preserve the status quo.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Do you second that motion?

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

I thought I had moved an amendment. Perhaps the best way to proceed would be to take a vote.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Okay, I have circumvented the right order.... My apologies. Monsieur Ménard has his proposal before the committee, and it is a motion. Let's vote on that first, and then if that's defeated, we'll come back to your motion.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Then nothing changes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Essentially, we would have to adopt Mr. MacKenzie's. It's more in line with the status quo.

(Motion negatived)

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

The motion is defeated. Therefore, we will go back to more of the status quo situation—that is the other page you have—which is:

That the witnesses be given ten (10) minutes for their opening statements; that, at the discretion of the Chair, during the questioning of witnesses, there be allocated seven (7) minutes for the first questioner, starting with the Opposition parties;

--a member of each party would each get one--

and that thereafter, five (5) minutes be

I am reading the wrong one, sorry.

Mr. MacKenzie, rather than the chair going through it, why don't you explain to us what you have here.