Evidence of meeting #2 for Public Safety and National Security in the 39th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
Conservative
Dave MacKenzie Conservative Oxford, ON
Basically, first I would strike out the ten minutes in the second line and just use seven minutes for the first questioner of each party, so that the first round is seven minutes and subsequent rounds are five minutes. All this does is put the rotation into writing.
Conservative
Dave MacKenzie Conservative Oxford, ON
Yes, and just make it seven minutes during the questioning of the witnesses on the first round, and have the order of questioning by party, and then the second and subsequent rounds would be five minutes. Again, it lists the order of questioning.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
Is there any further discussion before we ask for a show of hands here?
Monsieur Ménard.
Bloc
Serge Ménard Bloc Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
It was my impression that when setting down the rules for a committee, it was important to avoid naming political parties, because the rules are valid for a certain period of time, and changes within political parties are always a possibility. As we have seen in the past, representation in the House can change. I thought the objective here was to decide on the order of questioning for government representatives, representatives of the official opposition and representative of other parties, not, for instance, to specifically mention Bloc representatives.
Mind you, I have no objections to proceeding either way. I understand that amongst ourselves, we refer to specific parties. It's simpler and quicker and there's no confusion. That's why when I was asked by Mr. McKenzie to put forward his idea, I suggested two different wordings, one where the names of political parties were mentioned -- that's what you would like to see - and another where no names are mentioned. Obviously, these suggestions were based on the first scenario, but they can easily be adapted to the current situation.
The approach advocated by Mr. McKenzie is difficult to set down in writing, but can easily be adopted in practice. In committees, the Chair begins by recognizing representatives of the opposition, following by government representatives. What Mr. Mckenzie wants, and what I want as well, is for the member representing the party with the fewest members to have an opportunity to ask questions.
It was my understanding that we were proceeding in the same order, beginning with the official opposition, followed by the second opposition party, then by the third opposition party, before going to a government representative. However, during the second round, there are fewer questioners, because there is only one representative of the last party on the committee. Therefore, the Chair should recognize a representative of the official opposition, followed by a representative of the second opposition party, but not ultimately the representative of the last party, so as to be certain that all committee members have an opportunity to speak. The final person to be recognized would be a government representative. I believe this conveys the opinion expressed by Mr. McKenzie.
I share Mr. McKenzie's objective. You stated that even NDP members would have an opportunity to put their questions, as indeed would all committee members in the course of the first round of questions.
I thought that I had come up with the appropriate wording:
The Chair asks the first questioners to ask their questions within [...]
The total elapsed time would be seven minutes.
[...] in the following order: representatives of the Opposition parties in the order of their representation in the House of Commons, followed by the first representative of the Government, and finally, other members who have not yet asked questions, to do so within [...]
They would have five minutes.
[...] in a similar but not identical order, given that not all parties have the same number of members on the Committee.
We could keep the words “until every member has asked questions at least once”.
After reflecting long and hard on this, I concluded that this a similar approach. The Chair proceeds in a similar order, skipping over those parties whose members have already asked questions, to recognize parties with many members.
However, I'm not convinced that by proceeding in the suggested order, the desired results would be achieved. You name the political parties. In our proposal, we felt it was best to proceed in the order mentioned. However, I've observed that this is generally how the Chair proceeds. You begin with the official opposition, followed by the Bloc Québécois, then by the other opposition party and finally by the government party. Then you go back to the opposition until...
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
For clarification, your main concern is that the parties are actually named here. The chair would essentially follow what's been proposed here, but you're objecting to the parties actually being named.
Some of us have sat on committees where they are named. As the Speaker says, every committee is master of its own destiny, so if you have a problem with this wording we can reword it. It would mean essentially the same thing, without using the names of the parties.
Mr. Chan.
Liberal
Raymond Chan Liberal Richmond, BC
I am a neophyte to this game. I just want to make sure that if you name the political party, the frequency of the parties being able to ask questions will be proportionate to the number of members in the committee. Is that right?
Conservative
Liberal
Raymond Chan Liberal Richmond, BC
Right, and whatever we change cannot deviate from that principle, because I don't want to play games here.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
No, and we try to make it absolutely clear as to who would have....
Mr. Ménard says that maybe things will change. If the proportion of members in the political parties changes during the length of this Parliament, we can always revisit the issue. In fact, on the justice committee, which I was a member of last time, we actually adopted this system near the end of the Parliament.
Bloc
Serge Ménard Bloc Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
That was not the case in the last Parliament.
There is considerable animosity within parties when some members break away to form new parties. Under such circumstances, it's extremely difficult to bring in equitable changes. However, if we follow the lead of other committees on which I've served and set down rules at the beginning of the session and if we proceed according to party representation in the House, rather than actually name the parties, we will ultimately operate in a manner that everyone will considerable equitable.
Remember when some Conservative Party members broke away to form the Bloc Québécois. I don't believe the atmosphere at the time was conducive to a change in committee operating rules.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
I'm hoping that doesn't happen.
Mr. MacKenzie, can you enlighten us here? And maybe in your remarks you might want to explain to us if what you have proposed on this second list is any different from what was in the original motion we had.
Conservative
Dave MacKenzie Conservative Oxford, ON
The intent of the motion was to simply list in order so that nobody lost a turn, and to make it clear how the whole thing would flow--not to be political, partisan, or whatever. I understand what Mr. Ménard is saying, but there's nothing intended in that.
The only thing is that when you look at the original statement in the routine motion that was presented to us, I don't think the subsequent rounds are listed particularly well. What we were trying to do was just clarify....
It is obvious how we would go in the first rounds, but when you look at the subsequent rounds, do you just go down the table or do you alternate by party? So we were trying to say that we will alternate by party so that everybody gets a chance.
If you take number 6 the way it's written, I would agree that the opposition parties would all go first and we would go fourth. But then in subsequent rounds, perhaps you could just start and go down. I'm not saying anybody would, but we were just trying to make it clear how it would go.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
Maybe, if you're all in agreement, we can simply add to the original motion that led to all of this debate, and say that parties take turns until everyone's had an opportunity to ask questions.
Conservative
Dave MacKenzie Conservative Oxford, ON
That will do, as long as everybody's clear and understands how it's going to work so the chair can follow some system.
Conservative
Liberal
Raymond Chan Liberal Richmond, BC
Mr. Chairman, I think we all agree on the principle, and if you add the statement of the principle in the amended version, I think that would clarify it, and it would give people confidence.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
Okay, let's do that. The suggestion here is that we add to the part near the end, where it says, “be allocated to each subsequent questioner, continuing with the opposition going first until every member has spoken once”. Can you all live with that?
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
Okay. What we've added here is “and alternating between the government and opposition parties”. Okay?
Are you willing to withdraw your motion and have this become our new motion? Okay. I think we're ready for the vote, if there's no more discussion.
(Motion agreed to)
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
Thank you very much.
Let me just say that if at any time you feel I am not following the guidelines, you can put your hand up on a point of order and correct the chair, if I'm not following what you think we have agreed on.
Is there any other business that we have to...? Oh yes, there's one thing we have to confirm, and that is that the meeting times be Monday and Wednesday from 3:30 to 5:30. We did not really officially approve that.
Yes.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
Okay. It is moved by Mrs. Kadis that we meet Monday and Wednesday from 3:30 to 5:30, generally in this room. Is there any discussion on that?
(Motion agreed to)
